


the age of dissonance

by firstaudrina



Category: Gossip Girl
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Book/Movie Fusion, Alternate Universe - Gilded Age, Alternate Universe - The Age of Innocence, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-09
Updated: 2015-12-23
Packaged: 2019-02-13 18:41:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 52,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12990177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/firstaudrina/pseuds/firstaudrina
Summary: The Countess Grimaldi has not been seen in New York since she was still Blair Waldorf, society belle.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A re-working of Edith Wharton's _The Age of Innocence._ Some dialogue and lines taken directly from the original novel. That is true throughout the fic; I don't want to disguise just how heavily this relies upon Wharton.

The theatre is stifling, noisy with chatter and gossip. This is where he sees her again. Again, though it feels like a first.

Dan Humphrey does not enjoy the opera – or chatter and gossip, for that matter. Any enjoyment he takes from this excursion is purely aesthetic, the nominal pleasure one takes from pretty architecture and nice decorations; he admires the deep red carpeting and golden fixtures, but with a distant sort of interest that he feels hardly ought to be taken into account. When Dan Humphrey thinks of the aesthetics of nights at the opera, he thinks not of rugs and costumes but of one particular lady, sitting now ensconced amongst her mother and grandmother in the box directly opposite.

Framed between the older ladies in their dark brocade is his Serena – not his _yet_ , he supposes, but after today he is assured that it shall be soon enough. The theatre is dim but Serena van der Woodsen is a light all her own, nearly glowing amongst the dark suits and demure dresses. Her blonde hair tumbles loose from its pinning, fighting the confinement, tendrils dropping to caress her throat and brush the shoulders of her gown, which shines crisply white. She keeps shooting playful smiles at him that Dan can't help returning. In her arms she holds a bouquet of lilies, sent to her by him daily, and the absent way her fingers play over the petals pleases him inexpressibly. She is the only saving grace in this sea of the mundane. Dan's fingers itch hopelessly for a pen and a cigarette.

It had been just that very afternoon that the attraction between himself and Serena had finally blossomed into an understanding, the iron-willed matriarch of the family, the widowed Mrs Rhodes, granting her permission at last for their engagement. Her consent had been hard-won and Dan was glad to have it, though he had found the negotiations distasteful. He wishes things could be simpler, that he and Serena could be allowed to decide their own fate, but it is rather unfortunately certain that such a thing could never happen here amongst the New York gentility. They wouldn't know what to do with their lives if control was placed squarely in their hands instead of left to the invisible interwoven web of traditions and rules.

No one chatters to Dan, only chatters around him. He wonders if this is because he's standoffish, which Serena often chides him for, or because they still feel he does not belong.

It had amused Dan once he'd outgrown his youthful resentment; he'd grown up in this world but had never truly been allowed to take part in it. He is not modest about his accomplishments and considers himself better read and better educated than most of those in his set, certainly more introspective and possessing of more life experience. But Dan came up in the world much later than they did, his family money earned and not inherited, and it sets him apart in nearly every way. His experiences are alien to them, making _him_ alien to them, and therefore his peers have little interest in his company. Up until recently, out of spite, Dan had behaved much the same, ignoring them as they ignored him, but his engagement to Serena will change things. It will bring him to the forefront in a way he has never been, and they will be forced to accept him or end up shunning their most prized social butterfly, which is an outcome so unlikely as to be laughable.

Just then the curtains part behind Serena and another joins her party, a slight young woman in a dark dress. Serena turns with a sunny grin to greet this visitor, both hands reaching for those of the other young woman, who offers Serena only a half-smile in return. The girl is a shadow to Serena's glare, small and slim in her navy gown, skin pale and polished as pearl. Her lips are noticeably red even from a distance, which rather shocks Dan, for he can only assume they're painted such a color. Her movements are self-consciously controlled as she takes her seat, hands clutching her fan a moment before lifting to smooth over her dark hair, making sure every curl is where it ought to be.

Dan realizes with a start that he knows her. At the very same moment, he realizes that the chatter around him has a focus and that focus is _her_ – hundreds of heads and eyes and binoculars have turned as one towards that shadow with her tensely-set shoulders.

The attention is to be expected; the Countess Grimaldi has not been seen in New York since she was still Blair Waldorf, society belle.

"Well – my word," says Howard Archibald, a kind of subdued bemusement in his voice. He sits forward slightly even as he peers through his opera-glass and then, after a moment's perusal, hands the glass over to his father-in-law, William Vanderbilt, who is sitting beside him.

William Vanderbilt looks too, very briefly, and makes a thoughtful sound before exchanging curious glances with Archibald. William Vanderbilt is the sort of man who knows everything about everyone without giving off the appearance of prying in the slightest, as though he is entitled to the information thanks to his position or wealth, or just because he has always possessed an authority over matters of decorum and no one can imagine it differently. But he seems genuinely incredulous now, passing the glass back to his son in law.

Casting another disapproving look at the box opposite, William Vanderbilt says, "I didn't think the Rhodes would have tried it on."

Dan stills, his eyes downcast so as not to seem as though he is observing their exchange, but his ears are pricked nonetheless. He would hate to appear intrusive, especially considering he only shares this box on the goodwill of the Vanderbilt-Archibald family, which in turn is only because of his friendship with Nate Archibald, luckily not present tonight thanks to his honey-moon travels abroad.

The astonishment of the older men is no surprise to Dan, who, though he considers himself rather innovative, is privately just as taken aback. The Rhodes are as old a family as any other and deserving of just as much respect, but the misadventures of the Widow Rhodes' daughters (the younger, Lily, his dear Serena's mother) has lent the family an almost comical air, an affectionate teasing now that all bad behavior has been left firmly in the past. It did tarnish them somewhat in the eyes of the gentility, which is probably what allowed them to lower their standards enough to marry their prize girl off to a nouveau riche Humphrey, and to welcome the Countess back into the fold in the first place; however, all that said, it was quite another thing to parade her around in the public sphere.

Indeed, who would have thought they'd have tried it on!

Dan can barely remain still for the duration of the first act – more so than usual, even – but once they reach intermission he feels oddly rooted to his seat. Serena has turned her lovely head to speak to her cousin the Countess, who tilts her own to listen without taking her eyes off the empty curtained stage. She must be aware of whispers, feel the eyes upon her, but she shows no sign of it.

There are murmurs behind him, and one of the other young men – Dan believes it to be Marcus Beaton – says, "Well, does anyone know exactly what happened?"

"She left him," someone answers, "There's no denying that."

Sounding troubled, Beaton says, "He was an awful brute, I've heard?"

William Vanderbilt gives a slight nod, allows, "Indeed; I knew him at Nice. The sort to spend his money on gambling and women, running up quite a tab with both."

A soft laugh amongst the men, and then Beaton presses, "And –?"

"And she bolted," Vanderbilt says, an edge of distaste entering his voice for the first time, "with the secretary."

Disappointment replaces the eagerness in Beaton's voice: "Oh. I see."

"Which didn't last long, from all accounts," William Vanderbilt continues. "She was apparently desperately unhappy, and the younger van der Woodsen boy sent to retrieve her from Venice, where she had been living alone. Which is all well and good –" He sounds very much as though he'd rather she had been left in Italy. "But bringing her _here_? Planting her in the very center of their box at the opera?" He tsks.

Intermission is nearly ended but Dan gets to his feet, resolve strengthened by the very men giving him odd looks now. He moves out through the theatre, carpet silencing his steps, and finds the place feels very deserted without its usual crowd to wade through.

Serena beams at him as soon as he enters the box, though her mother can barely summon a smile to complement her condescendingly raised eyebrow.

"Daniel," she says in mild greeting.

Serena's grandmother, the Widow Rhodes, is much more welcoming, to Dan's eternal confusion. Mrs Rhodes has obviously decided to like him, and Dan is grateful though unclear as to the reason; perhaps being contrary to her daughter is enough.

The Countess spares him one look over her shoulder, fan open wide to hide her face from the audience. She doesn't speak.

"You remember my dear cousin Blair," Serena says unquestioningly as she lifts her pretty eyes to meet his. He can read her easily, her silent appeal to be kind and welcoming.

"Of course," Dan says, though his memories of Blair Grimaldi are greatly faded with time. She'd had little time or interest in Dan back then and he had eyes only for Serena. He had risen as Blair fell, seventeen and already at the height of her scandal (so it seemed then, anyway). She'd ruined one carefully planned lifelong engagement – to Dan's friend Nate, his only friend, though they had been less acquainted then – in favor of another, seemingly brighter foreign match. One that turned sour quickly, it seems.

He shifts closer to Serena, offers quietly, "I hope you've told Madame Grimaldi of our engagement. I want everyone to know – we ought to announce it tonight, at the ball."

Their engagement announcement is not due for a few more weeks at best, but Dan can see Serena understands him as easily as he does her. His family holds little significance to those of any means, but the support will not go unremarked upon. "If you can persuade Mother," she says, "but why should we change what is already settled?" The reluctance is a front, merely what she is supposed to do, and a moment later she adds, "Tell my cousin yourself."

With reluctance of his own, Dan turns towards the Countess, who lets out a little sigh at being addressed and settles her somber eyes on him. He doesn't expect her to speak first but she does, her voice low, "Mr. Humphrey and I never got along very well."

Serena laughs, a soft pretty sound, and teases, "Well you were never very kind."

"No," she agrees, a touch too serious. "I never had much use for kindness or compassion." She looks at Dan again, her eyes very dark in her pale face. "I hope you won't hold it against me, Mr. Humphrey."

He meets her gaze directly, surprised by her words. "Of course not, Countess." He studies her face, unsmiling but not unkind, which is how he recalls it. "You have been away a very long time."

"Oh, centuries and centuries," she answers, somewhat flatly, her gaze straying from him as the lights flash, intermission coming to its end, "So long that I'm sure I'm dead and buried, and this dear old place is heaven."

Dan frowns at the back of her dark head, finding her words odd and impossible to comprehend; too open for a girl he can only remember as being tightly closed, distant and untouchable as a fairytale queen. It had seemed awfully fitting, even to Dan as young as he was, for her to ride off with her Count to his home across the water; but here she is again, returned to the city she had left without so much as a backwards glance, and Dan finds himself uncharitably displeased to see her again, as though still sixteen and bitter at the world.

If she's looking for heaven, he knows better than any that she won't find it here.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dan wonders just how he has become so invested in the fate of this girl who never even liked him.

Dan arrives at the ball late, duty driving his steps more than desire and the entire affair made more tedious by that fact. He enjoys balls almost less than the opera and the company of the Basses least of all; the fact that he must also put his life up on the public stage hardly helps his mood. He can nearly hear the whispering already, everyone wondering how the Rhodes could have allowed Serena to choose him of all people.

But this is a good thing in its own way, he reminds himself. If the gossip centers around Serena and himself instead – and their perfectly innocent courtship – then Madame Grimaldi is relieved of it another day.

The Basses' home, where the ball is held year after year on opera night, is one of the few in New York to possess a ball-room. The Basses' home is one of the few in New York to possess any number of similarly gorgeous, similarly useless things: a ball-room used once a year, china and silver touched only at Christmas, costly and sought-after paintings shoved to shadowy third-floor landings to make room for yet more costly ones. Their money is nearly as new as Dan's and they make up for it with flash and pomp.

Mrs. Bass, formerly Miss Charlotte Rhodes, had come up a penniless beauty from Florida and was introduced to society by her cousin, Dan's very own fiancée. She'd shown quite a lot of promise until she surprised everyone by marrying Chuck Bass, the snide and slick son of a much more impressive businessman. Chuck Bass had been known in his youth for his dalliances, often explained away by his frustrated and impatient father as the mistakes of the young, habits Chuck was sure to grow out of. Chuck had married under duress from his father to the prettiest girl who would have him, with everyone's hope being that it would jolt him into being a more settled young man. It did, for a year or so; he followed his father into business, behaved for a little while, and then, upon his father's passing, returned rapidly to a past he'd supposedly left behind. Now most nights he could be found on his way to houses of ill-repute, or at the very least one house in particular, that of his mistress.

Yet here they all are gathered in his ball-room, because it is so very splendid and fine. 

Bass is the controlling sort and his touch shows more in the house than his wife's. Dan notices Bass' favored deep purples echoing throughout the carpeting and upholstery as he passes through the main hall. Dan is tempted to visit the library, a room even he must admit is stunningly styled and stocked, and probably entered only on that rare once-a-year occasion that Dan steps into it. However, he knows Serena is awaiting him, so he passes by its heavy, glossy wooden door and into the gallery that leads its pretty way down to the ball-room. Dan rolls his eyes minutely as he takes in the art decorating his walk; another clear mark of Chuck Bass in the audacious and inappropriate nudes hanging right there in plain sight.

Hands clasped behind his back, Dan nods in mild greeting to Mr and Mrs Tripp Vanderbilt as he tries not to hurry too quickly on. He'd like to have the night over with as soon as he can manage it and return to the sanctity of his study, his books, his quiet and complete solitude. 

Finally his gaze alights on Serena standing a few feet from the ball-room entrance with her mother at her side, flowers clutched in one arm and the other held aloft to show the ring on her finger to a crowd of eager girls. She sees Dan, offering him an embarrassed smile. He returns it softly, noticing as he does that the Countess is conspicuously absent. One by one the congratulatory girls in their fluffy tulle notice his arrival, offering him pleasantries they'd never bothered to offer before and spinning off to join the dancing, leaving him to take Serena's hand.

"I've done as you asked," she says, hand tucked now into the bend of his arm. "They were all terribly jealous."

"Of all the fine gifts you'll receive and dresses you'll get to wear, no doubt," he says.

Serena smiles. "Of my very handsome young man," she corrects as they take their place amongst the other dancers.

"If anyone is jealous," Dan tells her, "it is everyone in this room of me, for I've got the prettiest girl in New York in my arms."

Indeed, there is real disappoint on the face of nearly all the single (and even some of the married) men in the room when their eyes catch Serena and the charming swish of her skirts, the pretty line of her arm, the curls falling against her tender throat. Her smile is the brightest in the room, all sunshine and all for Dan.

After the dance is finished, they continue on to the conservatory, seeking a private moment amongst the plants. 

"I wish it hadn't had to be done at a ball," Dan admits, leading her towards a bench nestled in pink flowers. 

"I know," Serena says with a touch of her own reluctance, though she is far from possessing Dan's distaste for the frippery of these events. "But it was the right thing to do and now that it's done we can turn all our thoughts to the future."

"Yes." He smiles a little. "You are right."

"I know how very much you value your privacy," she says, gloved hand wrapping around his. "But even here we are alone together, aren't we? In fact –" She shoots a quick look around and must find their privacy satisfactory, for she leans in and presses a furtive kiss to his mouth. Dan laughs in surprise, cheeks reddening like a schoolboy. She is always surprising him; he think it's what he loves best of her.

Still, it leaves him strangely shy, perhaps because it's her, perhaps because the only kisses they've shared prior have been to hands or cheeks, or otherwise in complete secrecy, stolen and hidden. Anyone could have seen her just now, the daring girl. 

She lays an affectionate hand to his flushed cheek, glove cool against his skin. "Did you speak to my cousin?" she asks, a gentle nudge towards more practical matters. 

"Oh," he says. He'd felt too odd about doing so after their conversation – her flat unfamiliar tone, the resignation in her eyes. "No, I – I hadn't the chance after all." 

Serena frowns slightly; more perplexed than disappointed, he thinks. "Ah. You must, then, for I didn't either. I shouldn't like her to think –"

"Of course not." He gives a little nod. "But aren't you the person to do it, really?"

"Yes," Serena agrees, "If it had been done at the right time. Now I think you ought to explain that I'd asked you to do it at the Opera before we told everyone here, lest she thinks she's been forgotten. Blair has always been very sensitive, you know, especially in matters such as these."

"Of course, of course," he says. "You are right, my dear. But I haven't seen her yet – has she come tonight?"

"No, at the last minute she decided not to."

"At the last minute?"

"Yes. It was rather a surprise, as she's always been so fond of balls and of dancing, but she felt she didn't look smart enough. Which is silly, she looked lovely, but she was not to be convinced." 

Dan breathes a little sigh of relief. He sees that Blair Grimaldi is as sharp as she ever was and, in choosing not to attend, she did his announcement one better: she took herself off that public stage Dan loathes so very much, saving herself from further talk without Dan having to do a thing for her. 

She had always been a rather capable girl, hadn't she.

 

 

 

 

The next day is taken up with engagement visits, from Dan's home to Serena's and then on to the imposing house of Mrs Rhodes and rather amusing lady within. The snide and supercilious manner for which she was long known has faded over the course of old age and numerous illnesses, her sharpness settling into cutting humor. She was often too weak to leave her home to mingle with society and so demanded society come to her, which, despite the lackluster meals often served at her table, was a command they were simply too intimidated not to obey.

The Countess, Dan learned, was staying with Mrs Rhodes but they were all very glad to arrive and find her luckily out. 

"Your father must write one of his delightful little ditties for the occasion, Mr Humphrey," Mrs Rhodes says, eyes twinkling. "If he could balance his no doubt strenuous responsibilities to the stage and spare a moment for it."

Serena giggles. "Granny, you're horrid," she says. "And you haven't even looked at my ring yet."

"Ah, yes, of course, darling." She snaps her fingers for the maid, who scurries forward to add a generous amount of gin to Mrs Rhodes' teacup – which causes Serena's mother to give an ill-concealed roll of the eyes. "Why, what a lovely ring," she exclaims, taking Serena's hand between her own frail ones. "Who would have suspected a songwriter's son of having such fine taste in jewels."

Dan laughs a little. "Oh, I just picked whatever shined the brightest," he says. 

"Though nothing's so bright as my dear Serena, hm?" she says, giving Serena's hand one last pat before releasing it. "Now when's the wedding to be?"

"As soon as ever it can, if only you'll back me up, Mrs Rhodes," Dan says, shooting a smile Serena's way.

"I think a long engagement is best," interrupts Mrs van der Woodsen, folding her hands in her lap. 

"Oh, Lily," Mrs Rhodes says, "When did you ever think a long engagement was best?"

Mrs van der Woodsen colors slightly with irritation. The topic of Lily van der Woodsen's various marriages is a rare one, only jested at by her mother in public and her daughter in private. "Well, Mother, that's my point. They must have time to get to know each other."

"Oh, pish," Mrs Rhodes says. "They know each other well enough already. Everyone in New York already knows everyone! Don't wait, my dear; time is fleeting, especially for an old girl such as myself, and I want to give the wedding breakfast."

Though this is, of course, an expected offer, the round of expected gratitude is so exuberant it almost drowns out the sound of the door, and with it Madame Grimaldi's soft steps, followed soon after by louder, brasher ones.

"Bass!" exclaims Mrs Rhodes, interest and mild humorous distaste in her tone. "What on earth has brought you to my doorstep?"

Serena moves to greet the Countess as Chuck Bass steps forward for a brisk handshake. "I met the Countess in Madison Square and she was good enough to let me walk home with her."

He is soon dragged into conversation with the old woman, who had a way of sinking her teeth into a talk in such a way as to make it difficult for her partner to exit the conversation. In doing so she quite forgets her relatives, who begin the drift towards the door, Dan quiet again while Serena and her mother chat to the Countess. Then the van der Woodsen women are being helped into their cloaks and Dan finds himself facing Madame Grimaldi's small, almost disingenuous smile.

He remembers that he is yet to have his conversation with her. "You know about Serena and I?" he says, embarrassed. "I was meant to tell you at the Opera – Serena quite scolded me for failing in my duty – but I just found I couldn't, in that crowd."

Her smile turns a touch more honest, but is undercut by the faintly sardonic lift of her brow. The gesture reminds him suddenly of her younger self, that dismissive Blair Waldorf of days past. "I understand," she says. "One doesn't tell such things first in a crowd."

"Yes," he agrees with a slight inclination of his head. Then he falls silent, awkwardly aware that he has never had anything to say to her.

"Are you waiting for congratulations, Mr Humphrey?" she asks – and if he didn't know better, he'd almost think there was something playful in her tone.

"Oh, I…hadn't thought of it," he says. "But yes, of course – come, Countess, aren't you glad to see your dear friend settled?"

Her eyes seem darker in the dimness of the hall, and her face all the paler; he realizes she wears no rouge or paint on her lips as she had at the opera and it leaves a distinctly gray cast to her countenance. Despite it, he couldn't say she didn't look well – no, he corrects himself, always a particular man when it comes to words, not well – but there is something still compelling there, in those eyes so dark in her pale face.

"Glad, yes…" she trails off. "Anyway, she seems to like you a great deal, so what else am I to say in the matter?"

Dan gives a disbelieving little laugh. "I do believe you were told to be kind to me," he says.

"Was I?" Her other eyebrow lifts to mirror the first. "As you might already be able to tell, I'm rather awful at doing what I'm told."

"Then I might offer congratulations to you," Dan says. "You've managed something no one else of your set ever has."

For the first time in his memory, she looks at him as though he's interesting. But Serena and her mother are already half out the door, and Dan is drawn along with them.

"Good-bye," Madame Grimaldi offers, giving them a smile before her eyes find Dan again. "Do come and see me sometime." 

 

 

 

 

It's only a few days after that Nate Archibald returns from his prolonged European excursion with his new wife beside him. He is welcomed home, accordingly, by a small dinner of family and friends ready to hear what the young couple had seen and with whom they'd visited. Dan attends alone, as Serena is caught up tending to his grandmother through some minor sickness or other. He'd like to bring his family along just for the support, but the Vanderbilts have yet to warm to the entire Humphrey clan, merely granting Dan special permission due to Nate's friendship with him. 

Nate is very happy and very brown from the sun, full of tales of hiking and swimming. 

"It sounds a perfect horror," Dan jokes. "Did you take in even a little bit of culture? One painting – a postcard of a painting?"

"Nope, not a whit, not a one," Nate says cheerfully. 

Dan wonders if anyone has told him of the Countess' return. Though he supposes it doesn't matter very much, or it shouldn't, because Nate and Penelope are doing so well, the happiest newlyweds Dan has yet encountered.

"I hear congratulations are in order for you," Nate says. "Finally got Serena to agree, did you?"

"Got her mother to agree, more like," Dan says dryly. 

"Ah, you'll grow on her," Nate says confidently. "Or you won't, but either way you have achieved your goal."

Dan laughs, clapping Nate on the back as they make their way into the dining room. 

"I'm only sorry we missed the ball," Penelope says once dinner is underway. "There were so many wonderful diversions in Europe, but I do look forward to it every year." A beat passes and her real reason for bringing it up emerges. "I heard Blair Grimaldi returned in our absence; was she at the ball?"

To his credit, there was barely a perceptible change to Nate's expression at the sound of Blair's name. (Dan imagines he is not the only one who noticed Penelope purposefully leaving off Blair's title.)

"No, no, thank goodness," says Mrs Archibald, Nate's mother. "She had that decency."

"Perhaps the Basses don't approve of her," suggests Mrs Tripp Vanderbilt.

"Mrs Bass may not," William Vanderbilt allows. "But Bass certainly does, to absolutely no one's surprise; she was seen walking up Fifth Avenue with him in broad daylight."

There was a murmur of shock through the table.

"I don't see why we ought to speak of Blair tonight," Nate says (and Penelope visibly bristles at his familiar use of her name). There's no venom in his voice at all, which is like Nate; he simply doesn't see the point of speaking of her, has never shown any interest in gossip.

"At any rate," Mrs Archibald says, "It was in better taste not to go to the ball."

"Yes, it would have been horribly…conspicuous," decides Mrs Tripp Vanderbilt.

"So?" Dan says, surprising himself utterly by joining in the conversation. "Why shouldn't she be conspicuous? She's going to be anyway, whether she likes it or not, with everyone eyeing her every move all the time. She made a bad marriage, yes, but I don't why she must bear the brunt of the blame as though it isn't her husband's fault at all for being cruel to her."

Silence reigns after Dan's little pronouncement and it sinks through him like a stone in water that this is the absolute last place where he should say a thing like that – to these people, Madame Grimaldi is indeed at fault. She chose her bad luck; had she done what she was supposed to do, she would be sitting where Penelope is sitting, would very proudly be Mrs Nate Archibald. 

Nate sits across from him and Dan meets his eyes warily, hoping the unspoken apology is clear. 

"I'd forgotten," William Vanderbilt says. "It's my mistake. I'd forgotten your association with the Rhodes family, Mr Humphrey; of course you must back the Countess for their sake."

"Not just for their sake," Dan murmurs, daring further. "It's what I feel. She has had an unhappy life. That doesn't make her an outcast. She made mistakes, yes, but I don’t see why she ought to be punished for them."

"I agree," Nate says, with a touch of finality. The cheer is very much gone from him, and he sighs a little. "I'm the only one truly allowed to take offense, and I don't; I'm perfectly happy with how my life has gone since. If Blair is not, then I feel only pity for her."

There's a little chorus of how good, how sweet, how kind Nate is but he brushes it all aside with a shrug. Dan hopes Nate is not privately bothered by the line Dan has taken but, more than that, he wishes the conversation hadn't been cut so short. Dan feels his point was not made. He is not merely repeating the family line; he feels strongly, suddenly, that the hypocrisy of demonizing a woman for cruelties inflicted by her husband is not to be endured or supported. She should be free to do as she wishes – as free as any man is. Dan decides this spontaneously but firmly and plans to address it again at his earliest opportunity to do so.

Nate sees Dan to the door at the end of the evening.

"I hope you don't think me too awful," Dan says, almost anxiously. "I just couldn't let it lie like that."

"You wouldn't be yourself if you had," Nate says. "I'm not sore about Blair. Honestly. I only wish she hadn't ended up in such a tangle."

"Yes," Dan says with a nod. "I imagine she wishes the same thing."

 

 

 

 

Unfortunately Countess Grimaldi's tangle shows no sign of smoothing. The Rhodes had sent out invitations for a formal dinner, under the guise of re-introducing the Countess to society. Representatives from every respectable family were invited (even from the Vanderbilt-Archibalds, in this case the much safer cousin Tripp and his wife). Dan's young sister Jenny was beside herself with excitement, as she'd been a great fan of the Countess in her debutante days and had been dreaming of a debut as fine ever since seeing Blair's own.

Yet every single person, without fail, refused the invitation. 

It was an unexpected slight but the Rhodes weathered it in their unashamed way; the person most surprisingly affronted was Dan's mother, an accountably sweet woman who hated to see anyone suffer under society's judgments, a feeling she had passed down to her son. Dan was rather glad she took up the cause and happily gave her his support.

She thought on it a long while and decided finally, "We shall go and see Cyrus Rose."

Cyrus Rose is a diminutive man of impossibly good spirits and impossibly good standing, the latter at least in part because of the former. While Mrs Rose had still lived they entertained often but since her passing her husband has become somewhat more reticent, especially considering his only child (a son) is particularly reluctant to join social affairs. Cyrus Rose's growing reclusiveness, kind manner, and old age only made his favor carry more weight when bestowed, a fact Mrs Humphrey was very aware of.

Cyrus Rose listens to the whole tale with a bowed head and creased brow, nodding at this or that point, until Mrs Humphrey finishes, "And I cannot help but feel it is at least in part due to William Vanderbilt, who is of course a very honorable man but still somewhat upset at the broken engagement between the Countess and his grandson all those years ago."

"You don't have to tell me William knows how to hold a grudge," Cyrus says, not without some amusement. "What bothers me is the principle of the thing. As long as a member of a well-known family is backed by that family it ought to be considered final."

"It seems so to me," Mrs Humphrey agrees, looking to Dan for his concurrence, which he provides with a nod.

"A relation of my late wife is coming soon to visit," Cyrus Rose says thoughtfully, "A duke of somewhere or other, very nice fellow. I'm having a dinner for him with a handful of select guests and I would be honored to extend an invitation to the Countess Grimaldi." He smiles slightly. "I knew her mother when she lived, you know. A wonderful woman, very sharp."

"Her daughter's the same," Dan says before he can help it. 

Pale eyes focus on Dan and then crinkle with a true smile. "Then I shall be all the gladder to have her to dine," Mr Rose says brightly. 

Dan's mother returns the smile with most earnest thanks echoed by Dan himself, though he wonders a little just how he has become so invested in the fate of this girl who never liked him. It's the principle of the thing, he tells himself. He'd be concerned for anyone in her situation and anyway she's nearly family, so that only makes it more natural he try to lend a hand.

 

 

 

 

It is generally agreed in New York that the Countess Grimaldi has "lost her looks."

She'd been considered a great beauty in her youth, second only to Serena. She wasn't the kind of girl who set fashions but the kind that followed them to the letter, carrying them off with such style that it was remarkable in its own way. She was a master of every talent little girls are expected to learn, none of Serena's picked up and abandoned habits in her history – no, Blair Waldorf had seen every single thing through to the end with such grace that she was awarded that compliment of all compliments given to young ladies, accomplished. 

Her parents had seen her married before they passed, each in their own tragic manner: her father had seen to end his own life for reasons still unknown and unspoken and her mother had fallen prey to illness soon after, perhaps out of shame or heartbreak. It left her quite alone in the world, with the distant Rhodes her only living relations, isolated with a husband whose love quickly became something else entirely. 

Dan thinks of this as he watches Blair Grimaldi enter the Rose drawing-room on the evening of the dinner for the duke. She stops just inside the door to take in the room with those large dark eyes fringed with even darker lashes, her mouth tinged a soft, probably unnatural pink and her white skin a little tight to her delicate bones. Yes, Dan thinks, the girl she was is indisputably gone. The youthful flushed cheeks, the superior mean twist to her pretty mouth – all gone. She is thinner now, paler, more worn, noticeably tired. Her former style and flair has simplified and softened. But there is a certainty to her that had been lacking before; she'd always had a fierce kind of hunger that showed in her every expression and gesture, a deep yearning for something that seemed to always exist just beyond her. Even Dan, caught up as he'd been in Serena's thrall, had noticed Blair Waldorf's desperate desire, mainly because it had often manifested in trying to one-up Serena the way girls sometimes did. Nothing would ever be enough for her, and so she'd gone for the romantic adventure across the sea. 

That's all gone now. Despite the hint of hesitancy in her right at the moment, she seems to fill her skin as never before. Whatever she'd gone through must have brought this to her, a sorrow and a surety, made her into a woman who has learned exactly who she is.

It worries him to think what must have gone into the making of her eyes.

Cyrus Rose dominates her conversation during dinner, bringing several rare smiles to the Countess' lips. Afterwards, the Duke takes her over for nearly twenty minutes of chatter that Dan watches disinterestedly from the other side of the room until, quite unexpectedly, the Countess rises and crosses right to him, settling demurely at Dan's side.

Blair Waldorf had been a follower of rules and etiquette to the utmost but Blair Grimaldi flaunts them with unpredictable brazenness. It is required, in this sort of situation, for a lady to remain seated while a series of gentlemen circle her one by one. A lady certainly must not leave the company of one man to seek the company of another. But she had and here she is, painted fan spread to cover her solemn mouth as she sets her eyes upon him.

"I think perhaps I was a little callous to you the other day," she says.

"Old habits," Dan remarks.

She smiles, so slightly Dan wonders if its his imagination. "Yes, perhaps. I want you to talk to me about Serena. Are you very much in love with her?"

A romantic flush touched the tops of his cheekbones. "As much as a man can be."

Her head tilts slightly, a real curiosity in her gaze. "Do you think there's a limit?"

He answers honestly, "If there is, I haven't found it."

"It's really and truly a romance then?" she says. "Serena loves you just as truly?"

"If she doesn't then I am the victim of a rather mean trick," Dan says.

The Countess smiles but presses, "It wasn't the least bit arranged?"

Dan is a little taken aback by the query. "Have you forgotten," he asks, meaning it to be another joke, "that in our country we don't allow our marriages to be arranged for us?" Not to mention that no one would arrange the marriage of their only daughter to a songwriter's son.

She looks down and blinks and he sees her lashes are wet. "Yes," a murmur, "I'd forgotten. I don't always remember that everything here is good that was – that was bad when I've come from."

Impulsively, Dan says, "You know you are among friends here."

She looks back at him without moving her downturned face an inch. "You were never my friend, Mr Humphrey."

"No," he says, a soft agreement, "But I'm almost your cousin now, and that's a good deal better, isn't it?"

She doesn't answer, attention drawn to a rustling at the doorway. "Serena has arrived; you'll want to see to her."

Dan pulls his gaze away to look in the same direction as the Countess, finding Serena tall and lovely with blossoms in her always-tangled hair like some kind of nymph. Her mother and brother trail her, and men immediately surround her, but she dwarfs them all with that glow of hers, like a lantern in the dark. Dan has spilled so much ink to the thought of Serena that he marvels any has been left behind to spill more.

"As you can see," he says, "I have so many rivals."

"Then stay with me a moment longer," she says, tapping his knee gently with her folded fan. 

"Yes," he says, still feeling the touch after it has ended. "Let me stay."

But at that moment Cyrus Rose finds them again, eager to engage the Countess in conversation once more. Dan rises, surrendering her company, and she holds out a hand to bid him good-bye.

"Tomorrow, then, after five," she says, very offhand, "I shall expect you."

"Tomorrow," he repeats, confusion missing from his tone though present in his mind. Tomorrow? They'd made no plans to meet; she hadn't even hinted. He is reminded of her first entreaty to visit with her, at the home of Mrs Rhodes; he'd assumed it was misplaced politeness and hadn't taken it seriously. Yet there it was again, an order more than an invitation, and that makes him smile. She had always been queenly in her manner in that way. The girl she was comes back to him more and more each time he sees her, though he'd been certain that he'd forgotten her so entirely.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dan often feels as though he is yanked in two opposing directions – back into the poor past he hardly remembers, forward into the respectable life that has been carved out for him. He remains unsteadily in the middle of these two points, helpless to choose between them.

The Countess had said after five and Dan follows her instruction almost too well, climbing her steps so long after that the hour has nearly changed to six.

He is surprised at the neighborhood she's chosen upon leaving Mrs. Rhodes', having assumed that if she were planning to relocate, it would be to somewhere just as lavish. Her house is nice enough from the outside, cared-for and neat, but nowhere near the caliber of her grandmother's house, or the home she had grown up in. It stands out amongst the shabbier surrounding homes, so he imagines some dusting-off had been done to it for her sake. Just down the way he recognizes the home of an artist formerly in Dan's acquaintance, a young woman and her sister whom he hasn't spoken to since his family moved up in the world.

In fact, the Countess' new neighborhood is the very like the one Dan's family had left behind so many years ago – a little run-down but still charming in its way, housing the less well off, the eccentric, the artists. Once Dan had looked forward to calling himself one among their number, but he's since put his efforts toward becoming a more respectable sort of man.

It is strange to reconcile haughty Blair Waldorf with this neglected corner of New York. Perhaps her French husband has left her with less than Dan thought.

Dan is ushered into the house by a foreign maid who speaks to him in an unfamiliar language that is beyond his abilities of comprehension. Still, despite the barriers of communication, she is pleasant and kind-faced as she takes his coat and waves him on to an empty sitting room. Despite his own lateness, the Countess has yet again done him one better: she is apparently not yet home herself. He frowns, standing uncertainly by the threshold. It's another minor annoyance on top of a day of them.

He had lunched with the Rhodes and, after that, gone on at least half a dozen more engagement visits to various families, smiling half-heartedly as the same conversations were enacted over and over again. There was cooing over the ring and questions about the date of the ceremony (Dan pressed _soon, I hope_ , which Serena's family sidestepped expertly), the length and locations of the honeymoon. It was terribly tedious but Dan had consigned himself to a lifetime of it, starting as soon as Serena would have him.

He had intended to tell Serena of his planned visit to the Countess Grimaldi's but they hadn't had a private moment to spare, and he knew better than to mention the Countess in mixed company. Besides, he really needn't mention it at all; had Serena not urged him to be kind to her cousin? He was merely following her request.

Upon reminding himself of that, his irritation fades somewhat and he allows himself a proper look around the room for the first time. The décor is rather haphazard but nonetheless charmingly arranged; little bits of her show in pale blue silk tacked up over the discolored wallpaper and the small porcelain figurines scattered here or there. Above the mantle she has an arrangement of painted silk fans and single blooms in delicate vases, quite a change from the overstuffed bouquets favored by everyone Dan knows. Then, on the wall opposite, there is a collection of startling little paintings that seem French in color and scope, but are alien to him. His mother is something of an art connoisseur and she has passed her passion for it down to him; Dan has an extensive knowledge of art and makes a point to stay on top of all the latest news relating to the topic. He is opinionated on the subject, often to the point of condescension. Yet these paintings are new to him, excepting one or two that he only half-recognizes from having read about them; it makes him almost resentful. Not having had much opportunity to travel, Dan hasn't seen as much art up close as he'd have liked to.

His discomfort is compounded by the unexpected emptiness of this peculiar little house. He begins to regret that he did not tell Serena he was coming. He realizes it's probably very suspicious for him to be waiting here alone; suspiciously intimate, at any rate, though Dan is usually not one to worry about things like that. Or he wasn't, before his engagement.

He wonders that the Countess summoned him with such command and then forgot him so entirely. Should he continue to wait? Had her invitation not been genuine?

Just as he moves towards the door, intending to leave a note with the maid and then depart, there is the clatter of a carriage out on the street. He hears it roll to a stop in front of the house, then the door of the carriage creaking open. Dan steps closer to the window, twitching the curtains aside and peering out in time to catch Countess Grimaldi stepping down onto the street, aided by none other than Chuck Bass.

Dan frowns.

Bass says something to Madame Grimaldi, holding her gloved hand in his own, and she seems to nod before pulling away. Bass gets back in the carriage; the Countess moves briskly towards the steps. Dan pulls away from the window, letting the curtains fall back into place.

Upon stepping into the room, the Countess appears not at all surprised to find Dan waiting. "How do you like my little house?" she asks, shedding all her outside layers and handing them off to the maid who appears silently at her shoulder – gloves, bonnet, cloak, all set aside. "It's not the finest or the prettiest but I think it suits me, really."

Before he can help it, he says, "Are you saying you're neither fine nor pretty?"

She pauses and looks at him, the barest of curves tilting her mouth. "That will be all, Dorota, thank you," she says to the maid, but her eyes remain firmly on Dan. "Well, Mr. Humphrey, what do you think?"

For a moment he isn't sure if he's being called upon to deem her pretty or not; instead he responds, "I quite like your little house," and finds it not so much a lie as an envious admission.

"My relations despise it, of course." She steps past him, closer to the fireplace, and takes a seat on one of the long sofas, gesturing him into the armchair nearest. "I ought to despise it, really, but it's rather delicious to have it all to myself and I find that pleases me enough to outweigh any objections."

"Do you like so much to be alone?"

"As long as my friends keep me from feeling lonely," she says, giving him that curious look again. "I once thought that to be alone was the very worst thing in the world, but in the course of my life I've found there are worse things." Dan shifts in his chair a tad uncomfortably, not sure he likes her tone. She may notice his expression, for it's with a much lighter voice that she adds, "Dorota will bring the tea presently. I hope you weren't waiting long."

"No, not too long," he says. "Though I thought for a moment you'd forgotten me. I suppose you were busy with Mr. Bass."

She half-smiles, drawing his attention to the soft red of her mouth. "Mr. Bass insisted upon showing me a number of houses. As I said, no one likes my choice; they don't seem to realize that if I'd wanted to live on a fashionable street I would have chosen one."

"Oh?" He sits forward slightly. "And why don't you?"

"I am trying very hard to be different than I was," she says. The statement ends up being left at that, because Dorota brings in the tea before the Countess can elaborate. She picks up one of the small, pretty cups, holding the saucer carefully in her other hand. "You must help me, Mr. Humphrey; I fear I've been away so long that I've forgotten all the rules, and learned the wrong ones in their place."

He laughs very softly. "I'm not certain I'm the man for that job," he says. "Anyone will plainly tell you that I'm not always best at things like that."

"But you were once new to this world, as I am new to it now," she says. "And I can see you observe everything, don't you?"

Dan colors faintly, obscurely proud. "I like to think that I am observant, yes."

"So you'll explain these things to me. You'll tell me all I need to know." She sets her cup lightly on the table at her elbow before picking up a cigarette case, taking one and then offering to him.

"Forgive me, Countess, but I feel you understand well enough without me." He leans forward further, tilting into the light she holds out for him and exhaling smoke as he shifts back. "Understand better than me, I would hazard."

"Ah, then we can both help each other," she says.

He very much wants to say _Perhaps you ought not be seen wandering around with Chuck Bass_ but he bites it back.

"There are plenty of people who can tell you what to do," he says instead.

She leans forward to flick cigarette ash carefully into a dish and, as she does so, moves into the glow of the fireplace, which suddenly ignites her, catching in her hair and lashes and the pearls at her throat. It edges her dark curls and heavy braids with golden brown, softens her tired pale features and makes them gleam. It's brief, the work of a blink, and then she shifts out of the light again.

"You mean my aunts? Granny? Yes, I suppose so. But they're rather cross with me right now, you understand, for wanting to set up on my own – Granny especially. She wants me with her, but…" She gives him another small, enigmatic smile. "I need to be free."

The simplicity of the statement and the gentle honesty of her tone touch him; he feels an answering wistfulness in himself. "I can understand how you feel," he murmurs. "Still, your family is surely better able to advise you than I. They can show you the way, all that." Hadn't she learned from her family in the first place, all those years ago?

"Do you think New York such a labyrinth?" she muses. "I remember it straight up and down, like Fifth Avenue, with big honest labels on everything. I always liked it just for that. It was so orderly, so neat; you always knew exactly where you were going."

He wonders if she is playing a game with him. Her words seem earnest but in Dan's ears they ring hollow and false. "Everything may be labeled – but everybody is not."

"Ah." Madame Grimaldi leans back in her chair, turning to gaze pensively into the fire. "Yes. That I've learned well, unfortunately." She looks back at him and he notices that while the firelight has warmed her cold complexion, it has left her eyes darker than ever. "There are only two people here who make me feel as if they understood what I mean and could explain things to me: you and Mr. Bass."

Dan involuntarily wrinkles his nose at the joining of their names, privately repulsed, but swallows the feeling quickly. She must have lived so close to immorality for so long that she still breathed more freely beside it.

"I understand," he says, "Truly, I do. But don't dismiss your family, your friends – they want to help you."

"I know, I know," Madame Grimaldi says with a slight nod, grounding out her cigarette with a sudden impatience. "But it's only on the condition that they don't hear anything unpleasant. Aunt Lily put it in those very words when I tried to – Does no one want to know the truth here, Humphrey? No. No, I know they don't. They want me to pretend as I have my whole life, but I find that now I –" And she cuts herself off just as her voice breaks, hands coming up to cover her face.

Instantly, he is on his feet and at her side, reaching unthinkingly for one of her hands. He holds it between his own as though trying to warm her, kneading reassuringly. "Blair, don't," he says kindly, "Blair, it's alright –"

Her face is caught in a sob that doesn't quite break through, her lips pressed together hard and eyes shut as she holds it back. She doesn't make a sound and after a moment her face smoothes again. She pulls her hand away. Her lashes are wet but no tears stain her face.

"I apologize," she says, using the very hand he'd been holding moments before to wipe gently beneath her eyes. "I lost myself for a moment."

"No, it's alright…" he says again. He feels the need to put distance between them then, and so he stands, pacing a few feet away. Seeing her tears has unsettled him, as though he peered through a keyhole into a scene that was not intended for his eyes.

He had called her by her given name – done so twice, and she had not seemed to notice.

There is the lucky interruption of Dorota at the doorway, making some announcement Dan cannot translate. The Countess replies in the same language, nodding, and lifts her fine slender fingers to run over her hair, making sure each and every strand is where it ought to be. That calm, contemplative mask slips over her features once more.

And, moments later, Aaron Rose enters arm in arm with a bright-faced young woman dressed head-to-toe in canary yellow with furs positively dripping off her.

"My dear Countess," Aaron says, "I've brought a new friend of mine to see you – Mrs. Ivy Dickens. She wasn't asked to the party last night, and she wants to know you."

The usually sullen Aaron is in surprisingly good spirits, seeming to match the nature of the lady beside him, who holds out a yell0w-gloved hand to Madame Grimaldi. "Of course I want to know you, Countess!" Dan notices some rather bold feathers pinned in her coppery hair. "I want to know everybody who's young and interesting and charming. And Mr. Rose tells me you like music – so you must come tomorrow evening to my house to hear Sarasate play! You know I've taken over Sundays in New York – it's the day they've all forgot and I make sure to always have something going on! Come and be amused, one and all, I say!"

The Countess merely blinks at the deluge of information, amusement curling her mouth. Dan thinks he spots something disdainful in arch of her eyebrow and wonders if she recognizes the oddness of the couple standing before her, or knows that Aaron Rose is taking quite a liberty showing up here with that woman. But despite the haughty edge to her smile, the Countess' eyes do reveal a genuine enthusiasm, even excitement.

"How kind of you to think of me," she says. "Please, do have a seat."

Dan exits not long after, glad of the intrusion and only wishing it had come a little earlier. He begins the long walk home in the chill night air, hands in his pockets and thoughts scattered, travelling a million paths in his mind but reaching no destinations. As he passes the florist from which he sends Serena's daily flowers, he realizes that the task had somehow slipped his mind this morning and he steps inside to undertake it now.

He writes a little snippet of poetry on the back of his card, as he is wont to do; nothing of his own devising, only a quote that had recently sparked thoughts of Serena. As he waits for an envelope, his eyes light upon some yellow roses gleaming in the corner of the shop, their curving petals like little flames amongst their darker rose cousins. He makes his mind up to send them to Serena instead of the customary lilies of the valley, but then decides not to. Impetuously, he has the clerk put the roses in another box pinned with another envelope on which he writes Madame Grimaldi's name.

He does not leave his card with the roses.

 

 

 

 

The following day he and Serena free themselves from familial obligations and abscond to the civilized wilds of the Park. Dan very much likes the Park in winter, the stark outlines of the trees against the pale blue sky and the white frost decorating the walkways. Serena is a bolt of summer in the dead of winter, her cheeks flushed pink and flowers woven into her hair in her customary way. Dan was never one for attention, but the appreciative looks she earns as they walk are well deserved and please him.

"It's so lovely to wake every morning to find your flowers waiting," she says, hand curling around the crook of his arm. "It's like you're there with me."

Apologetically, he says, "They came late yesterday. I hadn't time in the morning –"

"But you remember every day and that's what counts," she says. "It means so much more than if you'd just given a standing order. I know every day you're thinking of me." She nudges him slightly. "I know that's what Nate did with Penelope – they came daily at the appointed hour, like the post."

He smiles a little at that. "I… Yesterday, when I sent your lilies, I also had some flowers sent to Madame Grimaldi. Some yellow roses. Was that right?"

Serena beams at him and his uncertainty flickers and fades like a blown-out candle. "Very!" she says. "How very sweet of you. Anything of that kind delights her. Though I'm surprised she didn't mention it at lunch today – I know she received some peonies from Mr. Bass and violets from Cyrus Rose, a whole hamper of them."

He purses his lips. "I imagine mine were overshadowed by Bass'." But then he recalls that he had not left his card and regrets having spoken of them at all. He debates telling her about his visit, knowing it would seem odd if Madame Grimaldi had mentioned it and he had not – but odder still if she had not and he does.

Dan changes the subject neatly to their engagement, as just that morning Serena's mother had vexed him greatly by convincing her daughter of the necessity of a long courtship.

"You know Mother," Serena says. "She wouldn't be happy until I agreed, and she wouldn't allow me a moment's peace either."

"You only make my case for me," he says, taking her hand in his. "Wouldn't you like to be free of all that, finally? To strike out on our own?"

He can see both yearning and hesitancy in her eyes, and he knows if Serena only felt she could refuse her family, they'd be married already. "What, shall we elope?" she teases.

Dan, however, is serious. "If you would."

Serena laughs, tilting up to press her lips to her cheek, both of them cool from the winter air. "Oh, Dan, you _do_ love me. I'm so happy."

"Then let's be happier," he urges. "Your parents have given in to your every desire since you were a little girl, and you were never much concerned with pleasing them before."

But he can see her tiring of the conversation. "We can't behave like people in novels," she chides fondly and it almost wounds, the comment so direct as to be cutting. She squeezes his hand. "Did I tell you I showed Blair my ring? She thought it impossibly lovely, and you know she's very discerning – she hardly likes anything unless she's chosen it herself."

 

 

 

 

Dan wakes late on Tuesday morning, already in a sour mood thanks to the previous evening he'd spent at the club with Nate. He wasn't a regular attendee of the club, finding it monotonous, but since his engagement he was beginning to venture there more often. The chatter was the same every time he went, whatever new scandal that was occupying their time; it was only a changing of names and situations, but the same critical pronouncements. Yesterday it had been the appearance of Miss Eva Coupeau on Fifth Avenue in a small lilac brougham that was so clearly the mark of Chuck Bass that he might as well have had his name painted on its doors. The idea of a woman like _that_ allowing herself to be seen on a fashionable street at the fashionable hour had shocked them near to silence. Near to, mind.

After that the conversation turned to the little Sunday soiree at Mrs. Dickens' and Dan pointedly excused himself for the night.

So he isn't thrilled to find Jenny harping on it that very morning.

"She was at _Ivy Dickens_ ' on Sunday!" Jenny exclaims as Dan makes his way downstairs. She has that look on her face that is half outrage and half excitement, which she often wears after spending an evening with her friends. "She went there with Mr. Rose's son _and_ Mr. Bass!" Her tone demands that they share her horror.

"Who is this?" Dan asks, still tying his tie and stilling as his mother reaches over to help.

" _Your_ friend," Jenny accuses. "Countess Grimaldi."

"She isn't _my_ friend," he says snottily, annoyed. "Anyway, before she was married, I remember you being very upset that she wasn't _your_ friend."

Jenny reddens. "Mother."

Mrs. Humphrey smiles. "Truly, I don't see the harm. She's only being friendly, and I imagine she could use all the friends she can find."

This good-natured response does little to pacify Jenny, who is silent with fury for a moment that none of them recognize how shocking this is. Dan is aware that she's only parroting the things she's heard from everyone else but it bothers him nonetheless. Once Jenny had admired Blair, and continued to do so even after her return – until Jenny had been informed that she was no longer supposed to. Now she spouts the silliest accusations with ease.

Dan takes advantage of the calm in the storm to ask, "And where is Dad this morning?"

His mother averts her eyes. "I believe he was caught up at the theatre last night; he should be home for supper."

It all conspires to make him rather vexed. By the time he departs he is both impossibly annoyed and nearly an hour late. Normally no one would mind, but today Dan is immediately summoned into the office of his future father-in-law, William van der Woodsen, a partner of the firm.

Mr. van der Woodsen is an agreeable sort of man, charismatic to a fault, and much of his good humor can be found in his daughter. Despite this, Dan has never liked him. "Don't look so sullen, my dear boy," he says, looking up from some papers as Dan enters. "I haven't called you in to dismiss you."

Dan suspects he would be privately grateful if that _had_ been the reason he was called in. Law had never been his calling, nor did he think it ever would be; however, as he'd grown more serious about Serena, he'd realized that he would be less likely to win her family's consent as an aspiring novelist than a lawyer like her father. He had to have a serious enough profession counterbalance his family's frivolity, his father's amusing theatre career and mother's constant crusading. So here he is.

Mr. van der Woodsen leans back in his chair, surveying Dan. "It's a family matter," he says in his blunt way. "Lily's mother informed me of it yesterday. The Countess Grimaldi wishes to sue her husband for a divorce."

Dan bites his tongue. "I'm not sure why you're telling me," he says.

Mr. van der Woodsen raises an eyebrow. "Well, my boy, I have been told by everyone from the Great Celia on that you are the best choice for dealing with the matter. They've all named you."

"Me?" Dan repeats flatly. His displeasure stems from two points: that the Rhodes family thinks it fair to involve him in this, and that he's only got himself to blame for it. He _has_ openly positioned himself as the Countess' defender whether he intended to or not.

Mr. van der Woodsen goes on to explain that the entire family is, of course, opposed to the divorce; after all, the Countess is here and her husband all the way in France. There is nothing he could do to her now that she is safe with her family. He's already returned about as much of her money as he ever will. She claims she does not want to marry again. There is nothing to be gained from a divorce.

Dan is handed a packet of papers, but he doesn't look at them. "I don't understand," he says. "Her uncles ought to be handling this. _You_ ought to be handling this."

"In view of your alliance with our family and your place in the firm, it is only natural to have you also look over the case," Mr. van der Woodsen says easily. "Have a look at the papers. And then we shall talk."

Dan returns to his desk to do as he's told. The growing intimacy and fondness Dan had felt while sitting by the Countess' fireside was rather spectacularly smashed by the interruption of Aaron Rose and Ivy Dickens, and he's found in the days since that he remains indifferent to her. She knows very well how to care for herself, as she's shown time and time again, and clearly doesn't need to look for guidance when she does whatever she likes regardless. She ought not to have brought private matters to Dan's attention in the first place, and he resents being involved again now.

The papers are not what he expects – not entirely what he expects. There are letters dealing with financial matters, that sort of thing, and then a letter from the Count to his wife. It is barely a page in length, but despite that it manages to do a lot of damage.

That short letter is all it takes to restore Dan's compassion. He remembers the secretive sight of her tears, and her voice that just barely shook. He remembers the whispering that follows every step she takes, remembers Jenny's childish change of opinion, remembers Blair saying, "They want me to pretend as I have my whole life."

He'd known just what she meant, hadn't he? Dan had learned it the hard way, had been forced into the lesson. Pretending was the only way to survive here. The rules of the game were so entrenched in day-to-day life that one often ended up playing without realizing, only noticing later how very by the book their lives had been. Dan can admit, if only to himself, that he's not as singular as he imagines himself to be. He may have started out in the world differently than the other boys his age, but he's ended up crossing the same bridges to the same ends.

Are they not all as guilty as the Countess, in their own way? Dan had had a brief infatuation in his youth with a governess who had been sent away upon the discovery of it, and he'd felt such guilt at the thought of having ruined her – but ruined her how? She had only done what he had done, and he had faced few consequences for it. Most young men his age had similarly short-lived affairs and all lived to tell the tale, all leaving behind a young lady who would be picked to pieces because she ended up not being the type of girl one married – only the type of girl one enjoyed and then pitied.

Dan can imagine how a woman, intelligent and sensitive and terribly, terribly lonely, might turn away from her promises. He can imagine it very easily.

Dan rises and returns to the office. He purses his lips and says, trying not to sound sharp, "Alright. If you wish, I shall speak to Madame Grimaldi."

Mr. van der Woodsen has expected this, of course. He smiles. "Thank you, my boy. Your influence will do a world of good in securing things for us all."

"Securing things?"

"Yes," he says, "In convincing her to drop the whole silly matter. As I explained, there's no point to it, nothing to be gained. She'll never get a dollar more from him. As it is he's acted generously; he might have turned her out with nothing."

Dan must reluctantly accept the truth of that. "But surely, if there was ever a case –"

"And of course you've considered the consequences of her going through with it."

He pauses. "You mean the threat in her husband's letter." He shakes his head. "Merely angry words, vague insinuations."

"Perhaps," he says. "Either way, it would lead to quite a lot of unpleasant talk. Not just for her – for all of us."

" _Unpleasant_ ," Dan mutters venomously.

Mr. van der Woodsen observes him coolly for a moment. "Divorce is always unpleasant. Don't you agree?"

Again, with reluctance, "Yes." But he is not yet so easily swayed. "I cannot pledge myself to your cause until I've spoken to the Countess and heard her side in the matter."

Dan sends a message requesting an audience with her, which she grants for that evening. Her penmanship is distinct and purposeful, but her response is dashed on the back of Dan's note as though in a great hurry. The stark differences in their writing amuse him briefly.

For once in his life Dan is punctual, ascending the steps to the Countess' door not a minute after the agreed-upon time. Dorota ushers him in with a pleasant smile, reaching for his coat and hat, for which Dan thanks her – and then his gaze falls upon the overcoat already waiting in the hall, distinct and expensive, and the silk opera hat sitting besides it with the telltale initials CB visible on the lining. Bass.

Dan is infuriated, anger sparking as quickly as it usually does with him. Of all people to be present, it _would_ be Bass. The man seems to go everywhere Dan does, only Bass is always two steps ahead.

In the sitting room, Chuck Bass leans against the mantelpiece with a cigarette in one hand, dressed in one of his ridiculously flamboyant suits – a velvet jacket this time, with piping at the lapels and a peony tucked in the buttonhole. His vest underneath is brocade. The Countess sits demurely on a sofa, resting one elbow against its curved arm.

He looks absurd, Dan thinks resentfully. Though Dan cannot deny that there is something that ties them together visually – the peony on his jacket echoes the great score of them arranged on the table behind her, obviously a gift. Her dress mirrors Bass as well, red velvet with black fur at the neck and wide sleeves, so that when she lifts her arm the sleeve falls back and reveals bare skin to the elbow. A gold bracelet hangs from her thin wrist. There is something provocative about the combination of her concealed throat and naked arms, about fur worn inside a heated drawing room; and the red brings out the natural flush of her cheeks and lips, sets off her dark hair and eyes. He cannot imagine Serena in the garment, even despite her somewhat untraditional style of dress.

Madame Grimaldi smiles at Dan when she sees him, extending a hand as though she expects him to kiss it.

"Three whole days at Skuytercliff," Bass remarks with obvious distaste, naming the Roses' country home. "You best take every manner of amusement you possess up with you, for you'll find none there."

"Oh, I believe I'll be fine," she says. "I never minded a bit of quiet, and Mr. Rose was kind enough to come and invite me himself. He wanted to make up for his son's behavior the other night, though I found Aaron perfectly agreeable. Granny says I really must go."

"Granny _would_ ," Bass says. "I say it's a shame. You'll miss the little dinner I was setting up for you, with Campanini and Scalchi and all sorts of wonderful people."

She gives him a somewhat doubtful look, and then her eyes slide over to meet Dan's briefly. "I'd be almost tempted, were I not already engaged," she says. "Aside from the other night at Mrs. Dickens I've not met a single artist since I've been here."

Dan's heart gives a little jump in his chest. "Artists?" he interrupts. Were Bass not here, he would be glad to tell Madame Grimaldi of his own somewhat stalled artistic endeavors. "I could bring some to see you if you'd allow me – some painters, or poets."

"Painters?" Bass scoffs. "Are there painters in New York?"

The Countess smiles with that touch of old condescension. "That would be lovely. But I was thinking more of dramatic artists – singers, actors, musicians. My husband's house was always full of them."

She says the words so simply, as though there is not a single dark thought in her heart relating to them. As though she did not intend to risk her reputation by divorcing the man.

"New York is dying of dullness," Bass says. "And when I try to liven it up for you, you run off for three days. Put withered old Rose off a week – come, have a good time."

Dan feels set apart from the both of them suddenly, in his dull suit with his dull taste. He knows in some places, perhaps where the Countess comes from, painters and poets and novelists are sought after, respected; in his youthful fancies he'd dreamt of disappearing to some such place where his father's name and the origin of their fortune didn't matter quite so much. It's a silly thought. Dan is here, ultimately, and this is where he's chosen to stay.

"May I think it over?" she says. "I'll give you word tomorrow morning." Her tone is pleasant but overall edged, as though short on patience.

"Why not now?"

"Because it is late," she says. "Because I have little interest in committing myself on such short notice. Because I gave my word to the Roses. Take your pick."

Bass frowns at her. "Do you consider it late?"

"Yes," she says, "I still have to talk business with Humphrey." The dismissal in her voice is obvious now and it clearly doesn't sit well with Bass, who is unused to being dismissed.

"Then I suppose I must take my leave of you, Countess." He kisses her hand before he goes, with barely a word of goodbye to Dan.

Once he is gone, the Countess turns to Dan with a more open smile than she had given Mr. Bass. "You know poets, then? You care for such things?"

Dan pauses, unsure as to the nature of his hesitancy except that his desire to write has become so private, and almost embarrassing. "Immensely," he says finally. "If I could have my way, I… I would count myself amongst their number."

Her eyebrow raises, intrigue written on her face. "Oh?"

"I once wanted to write," he says, finding it easier to phrase once planted firmly in the past.

Her slight smile returns, more kind than he can recall it. "Ah, I remember now," she says. "You were always scribbling, weren’t you?"

"Yes," he says, surprised that she remembers.

The last time he'd been in her drawing room, Dan had noticed the spines of her many books and found names he knew and liked – Thackeray, Browning, Swinburne, Wilde. Their interests, he imagines, are not all that dissimilar.

She confides, "I used to care immensely too. But now I want to try not to. I want to cast off my old life and become just like everyone else here."

Dan's brow furrows. With conviction, he tells her, "You'll never be like everyone else."

"Don't say that," she exclaims, a genuine scolding. "If you knew how I hate to be different!"

There it comes again, reconciling the woman he has come to know with the girl he'd happily forgotten. She hardly could have been considered _different_ , then.

Looking away now, grown serious, she reaffirms, "I want to get away from all that."

His hesitancy returns and, at length, Dan says, "I know. I've spoken with Mr. van der Woodsen. That's why I'm here – he asked me to speak to you. I'm in the firm."

The Countess stares at him for a moment and then her expression clears. "You mean you can mange it for me? I can talk to you instead?" Her relief is evident. "Oh, that will be so much easier."

Her honest confusion and reassurance leads him to believe she'd only mentioned business to do away with Mr. Bass, and the thought pleases him. But he sobers again as he reminds himself of his task.

"I am here to talk about it," he says, sounding awkward and uncomfortable to his own ears.

Madame Grimaldi studies him. "You know about my husband – my life with him?"

Dan nods.

"Then – Well. What else is there? I'm a Protestant – our church does not forbid divorce in such cases."

Dan often feels as though he is yanked in two opposing directions – back into the poor past he hardly remembers, forward into the respectable life that has been carved out for him. He remains unsteadily in the middle of these two points, helpless to choose between them. In his heart, he hates her husband. He does not wish for her to be tied to him any longer. But he wants also to protect her, to protect Serena, to live up to the promise he has made to the Rhodes that he will be the right sort of man, the man they have decided he shall be.

"I looked through the papers you gave to your uncle," he says. "You know… Of course you know...that if your husband chooses to fight the case as he threatens to –"

"Yes?"

"He can say things that might be –" Dan clears his throat. "That might be unpl– might be distressing to you, and he might say them publicly, so they might harm you even if – No matter how unfounded they are."

She is quiet, a look on her face like she has swallowed something unpalatable. She is quiet for such a length of time that Dan is compelled to look away from her pale, distressed face and focus instead on her hands, the slim fingers and oval nails. She wears only one ring, a small unobtrusive ruby shaped like a heart – and no wedding ring.

Finally she murmurs, hopeful and defeated at once, "What harm could such accusations do me here?"

_Here_ , he thinks bitterly, _here in heaven_.

"New York society is a very small world," Dan says quietly. He remembers a talk his mother had given him once when he was a great deal younger. "And it's ruled by rather old-fashioned ideas – particularly about marriage and divorce. The legislation may favor divorce but social customs don't… Especially if – Despite how the woman might have been treated, if she has – If there are any offensive insinuations –"

She gives him an indignant look, a flash of the old Blair Waldorf, but her heart does not seem to be truly in it.

"My family tells me so," she says, corrects, "Our family. For you'll be my cousin soon." The look she gives him then is almost searching. "And you share their view?"

The room feels as though all the air has been driven out of it. Dan chafes under the obligations hanging silent over them. He wishes for fresh air instead of this small, stuffy, overheated room.

He does not answer her straight. "What would you gain that would compensate for all that wretched talk?"

"My freedom," she says sharply. "Is that nothing?"

"Aren't you free now?" he asks softly. "Now, with the Atlantic between you? You're free, you're safe – no one could touch you. Is it worth it to risk all that when the outcome may be incredibly painful? Think of those vile newspapers. Think of all those awful girls you grew up with who are now awful wives, and all their awful gossiping relations. It's stupid and narrow and unjust – but one can't make over society."

"No," she murmurs.

He wonders at the truth of the letter's contents. Only she would know and, that brief flash of affront aside, she has done nothing to confirm or deny them. He finds he does not hold it against her either way, not really, but without a firm way of disproving it she would be torn to shreds. Which she knows – she knows very well.

"I'm only doing as you asked," he says, feeling desperate to defend himself now that his choice has been made. "I'm showing you how they'll think of it – all the people who are fondest of you: the Rhodes, the Roses, the van der Woodsens." And all those who are not quite as fond of her. "If I didn't show you honestly it wouldn't be fair of me, would it? It would be leading you blind into disaster."

Quietly, she says, "No, it wouldn't be fair."

She stands, moving to the mantelpiece with her back to him, gathering her thoughts. She takes out a cigarette but does not offer one to him. He stands too, feeling discomfited and dismissed.

She turns suddenly, a harder look in her eyes. He is reminded of the first night at the opera and her blank, protective mask. "Very well," she says firmly. "I will do what you wish. What you all wish."

The capitulation is unexpected. Dan finds himself reaching for her hand, the one with the small ruby ring. "I only want to help you," he insists.

"You do help me," she says. "Now goodnight, cousin."

He bends to kiss her hand, the skin warm despite her coldness. She pulls back, repeats pointedly, "Goodnight," and Dan turns away unwillingly, leaves.

Dan does not see the Countess again for two weeks.

 

 

 

 

It is a crowded night at the theatre, but Dan doesn't much mind; his appreciation and enjoyment for the theatre is equaled only by his hatred for the opera. Thanks to his father's connections in that world, he is almost always guaranteed a seat wherever he chooses and it's something Dan has no trouble taking advantage of. He's been in and out of theatres since his boyhood, weaving around backstage and through the orchestra, first in little nowhere places and then the Bowery and then Broadway.

He often concludes that he prefers those so-called 'lesser' establishments, but he would never turn down a night of Shakespeare, even if the crowd around him must be the elegant sort.

The play tonight is a comedy, which Dan could sorely use, one of the better ones performed by one of the better English companies. There is palpable enthusiasm in the audience that he catches easily, soothing the restlessness that has plagued him for weeks – if only for tonight, at least.

Normally Dan has ears only for the play's wit and little patience for secondary couplings, but tonight he finds himself uncommonly bothered by the plight of little Hero; the scene of the arrested wedding, in particular. Agitation slices through his newly returned good humor. He isn't entirely certain why; there is, of course, something in the image of a woman torn down by slander that calls to mind Madame Grimaldi's troubling predicament, but the Countess is no soft-voiced ingénue, crying pretty tears at cruel fate. And that matter has been resolved already; no one had allowed Dan to forget that he'd been the one to resolve it.

He'd received such adulation from Serena's family but it only made him feel sick, unable to shake the sense that he'd only condemned the Countess somehow, despite opinions to the contrary.

"I was sure the old boy would manage it," Serena's father said proudly, and from the Great Celia, as they jokingly called her, had come congratulations too. "What nonsense it all was!" the great lady had said. "Wanting to pass herself off as Blair Waldorf and an old maid when she has the luck to be a married woman and a Countess!"

His enjoyment spoiled, Dan rises to leave as soon as the curtain falls on Beatrice's spitting anger. When he turns to face the side of the theatre and the boxes dotting its wall, he sees the very lady of his thoughts sitting amongst the Basses, Tripp Vanderbilt, and his wife. She is a remarkable figure sitting there silent and wan, only enforcing his connection of her with that heartbroken bride on the stage. He has been avoiding her. Though their eyes meet briefly, he would be content to continue to do so; however Mrs. Bass spots him also and gives him a wave of polite invitation that Dan cannot ignore.

Once in the box he makes brief conversation with Mrs. Bass, then Tripp and his wife. As they fall into other topics with each other and Dan falls silent, Madame Grimaldi glances back at him and speaks.

"Do you think," she says, "that if Beatrice's lover had sent her yellow roses, she might not have been so cross with him for so long?"

His heart seems to contract painfully in his chest. After their discussion he had sent her roses again, again neglected to include his card with them. Since she had never mentioned them, he assumed she did not know they came from him.

But she is clever, he's always known that.

He has the sudden memory of younger days, before he'd quite made his mark and before Blair was made a Countess. It was an impression only – a ball, he thinks, and her in ochre, laughing at a young man who'd asked her to dance. At the time he'd thought how cruel, how vicious, all these wealthy, careless girls.

He isn't sure where the thought originates. Her expression now is intent and untroubled; she is in no way making a spectacle of him.

"I think it takes a great deal more than flowers to win a girl like that," he says.

"A girl like what?" she asks, curious.

He thinks on it. "A girl of great conviction, I suppose."

She smiles, rare and lovely. "Yes," she agrees, "But I don't think they do any harm either."

He returns the smile without being able to help it. To his surprise a pink flush creeps into her cheeks. She adjusts her gloves. "What do you do while Serena is away?"

"I stick to my work," he says, "And try very hard not to cry from the tedium."

It had been a week earlier that Serena and her family took their customary trip down to St. Augustine. They were, the four of them, unable to stomach the entire stretch of a New York winter and so would enjoy the first frost before running off to more agreeable climates. Serena could not blossom without the sun.

The Countess still smiles, but with a great deal less warmth than before. "I suppose you already know, but – I have done what you wished." A moment's pause and she corrects, "What you advised."

The change in topic seems abrupt to him. "Yes, I did hear," he says.

"I wanted to say that I do feel that you were – that you were right," she says. "And I'm appreciative of your taking the time to help." She gives a little nod, then raises her opera-glass to focus back on the stage.

Dan is faintly perplexed but sees their conversation is at its end, so he stands and finally departs.

Only yesterday he had received a letter from Serena in which she repeated her appeal that he be kind to her cousin. _Though she doesn't show it_ , Serena had written in her pretty looping cursive, _she likes you – even admires you. I don't think anyone really understands her, not Granny or Mother. I love her more dearly than anyone in the world, excepting you, and sometimes even I don't understand her. But I can see that she's lonely and unhappy and perhaps a little bored – I think she's used to lots of things we haven't got, wonderful music and authors and all the clever people you admire. I can see that you're almost the only person in New York who can talk to her about what she really cares for_.

Such a letter was breathlessly long for Serena, who usually has little patience for more than a quick sentence or two. He thought it impossibly dear of her to worry, and to unburden herself to him. He took her plea seriously enough to override his own unease, and it was with that in mind that he endeavored to be a better friend to the Countess, if he could. He had not done so the night he advised her, nor at the theatre; but seeing her walking down Fifth Avenue the following afternoon, letter fresh in his mind, he quickens his step so he can fall in with hers.

He worries briefly that he may only be giving the club tonight's talking point, but surely there is nothing scandalous about walking down the street with one's own cousin.

"Countess," he greets, giving her a slight bow and tip of the hat.

She smiles, not so much in surprise as fond recognition. "Humphrey."

"Enjoying a walk in this fine weather?" he asks, gesturing at the frost on the ground and gray skies above.

"Ah, that's just an additional joy," she says. "I was rooting around the shops for a bit and now I must return home to dress for supper with Granny. I suspect she's attempting to pilfer all my evenings so I don't do something else to offend God and Christendom."

He gives a surprised little laugh. "Only looking out for you, I imagine."

"Yes, so she imagines too."

Dan puts his hands his pockets, an unfortunate and boyish habit he has been so far unable to break. "You were shopping?" This with some faint bemusement; he doesn't know why she wouldn't send her maid to do it for her. "What were you after?"

"Ephemera," she says. "Paper, ink. Some new books." With a charming touch of embarrassment, she adds, "I became rather distracted at the milliner's and lost nearly an hour. Do you think me vain?"

His first curiosity is in her choice of literature, and in the idea of going out just to pick up a few books. When he'd been younger every book he'd received had seemed the most impossibly wonderful gift; now that he can afford to, he has them shipped by the crate from London. But he attends to her query first. "Vain? Why, yes, I couldn't deny it; to look at hats is the more conceited action one can engage in, an absolute sin."

"You're having a joke at my expense," she says, a mixture of amused and admonishing. "You don't know how very constrained I was being. There was a time I would have bought the whole shop, with a new fleet of dresses to match and a fistful of jewels."

"I know," he says. "I can recall." He thinks again of her in the ochre dress. "I confess sometimes I think you must be an imposter, when I hold the picture of then and now in my head at once."

Her brows drawing together slightly, she says, "What do you mean?"

"Well, Blair Waldorf would certainly not accompany me down the street in broad daylight," he says. "Nor think me easy to talk to – nor talk to me at all, in fact."

"Do you find her so entirely gone? Not a bit of her left in me?"

"I couldn't say. But you are changed, and there's no denying that."

Her gaze turns introspective. "Changed, yes," she says. "I was a silly girl then. My father acted as though I hung the moon and somehow I believed him. I was too caught up in dreaming. I still believed in fairy tales." She smiles at him again but it's nothing like the first; it has no hint of feeling, it's pure artifice. "'Suffering has been stronger than all other teaching.'"

He recognizes the quotation immediately, regretting that he ever broached the subject. "Not entirely gone," he says then, firmly. "She's there in that queenly way you lift your brow and that certainty of attitude, the way you carry yourself with such assurance."

That very delicate blush rises once more, a wintery pink dusting her white cheek. "Ah, that's the writer then," she says. "How often is he allowed to speak?"

"In your _meanness_ too," he adds in good humor. "He's allowed out every other weekend at midnight if he's very good, and sometimes at Christmas too."

"I should like to meet him more often," she says. "It's a pity to keep him hidden away. I wonder that you got into the law, it seems so ill-suited."

"We all do what we must," he says lightly.

Understanding crosses her features briefly. "Indeed we do," she says. "I believe your street is here – I'm down a ways still."

He glances up at the street sign, having not even noticed where they we going. He returns his gaze to her with a smile. "I hope Mrs. Rhodes' meal is to your liking," he says playfully, as they both know Mrs. Rhodes has the worst cook in all of New York.

"I shall have her invite you too," she warns, "And I'll enjoy every minute you suffer."

"I expect nothing less."

Once they take their leave of each other, Dan spends the afternoon searching fruitlessly for yellow roses. He considers a replacement but decides nothing else would do as well, and so sends nothing except a note by messenger asking that he might call on her the next day. However, there is no response that night, or the morning after. Three days pass before he hears from Madame Grimaldi, three days of increasing mortification – he'd spoken too freely with her, made her reveal too much. The letter is dated unexpectedly from Skuytercliff.

_I ran away_ , begins the brief missive, _the day after our walk, and these kind friends have taken me in. I wanted to be quiet and think things over. You were right in telling me how kind they are; I feel myself so safe here. I wish that you were with us_.

The tone of it surprises him. It seems to possess that omnipresent sadness of hers, which he'd thought seemed recently soothed. What was she running away from, and why did she need to feel safe? He worries there was some threat from abroad that sent her into hiding, but perhaps she's merely being overdramatic in her epistolary prose the way some are. Perhaps she only wanted to avoid a week of dinners with her grandmother.

Dan is disappointed to find her gone, but then he remembers that that very afternoon Nate had extended an invitation to spend the weekend at one of the Vanderbilt country homes on the Hudson, a few miles below Skuytercliff. Dan had refused originally but reconsiders now; Nate made sure to express that Dan was always welcome, were he to change his mind. So Dan sets aside his plans to enjoy a quiet Sunday with his newest shipment of books, sending off a note to let Nate know that he will be joining them after all.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If she still needed him, she was determined not to let him see it.

The Vanderbilt estate on the Hudson is called Bellomont. It belongs, as do all the other estates in the Vanderbilt name, to Nate’s grandfather, though this particular manor has been doled out to cousin Tripp and his wife. They are happy hosts, always eager to have guests fill the many rooms and spill out onto the wide lawns. In winter the place has a literary feel, rising from the snow-covered grounds into the gray sky like a castle from a fairy tale.

Dan spends half the weekend playing in the snow with the littlest Vanderbilt cousins, sporting with Nate, and uncomfortably evading the flirtations of Penelope’s friend Miss Williams. He finds himself envious of Nate and Penelope's new marriage; he's happy for his friend but he also wishes he could be as happy himself. Dan's smiles are neither false nor forced, but he can’t deny the part of himself that is counting the minutes until his departure.

Midday on Sunday he takes his leave of Bellomont in a borrowed cutter so he can travel the distance to Skuytercliff.

Though Dan isn't sure he'll ever really be accustomed to the grand manor houses of the New York elite, he's over the twinge of envy he used to feel upon seeing them. During his youth, which coincided with the early years of his family's wealth, Dan had been struck embarrassingly dumb by each new show of splendor. Now he is able to suppress such feelings admirably. It is a help that Cyrus Rose's Skuytercliff is less imposing than most, a cheerful yellow-and-white house that looks best in summer, sitting as it does on a wide green lawn and between two massive leafy trees. Now it is a little lonely, the immense trees twisted and dark, bare branches poking into the white sky like witches' fingers. Still, it is not a bad place to visit and Dan feels little trepidation as he climbs the steps to ring the bell.

The butler informs Dan that the Countess is out attending an afternoon service with other guests, though Mr. Rose is in if Dan would like to speak to him. With thanks, Dan declines, thinking that instead he will head back up the road on foot in hopes of meeting the carriage on its return. But after a few minutes' walk he is rewarded with something much better: a small, distinctive figure coming down the road toward him in bright green, her hands tucked in a white fur muff. A smile crosses her face as soon as she is near enough to make him out.

"You've come!" Countess Grimaldi says with something of a laugh in her voice.

"I have," Dan answers. "I came to see what you are running from."

Her good humor vanishes briefly, eyes rolling heavenward in petulant dismay. "It's no matter. Come, I've such a chill; let's walk on."

With some concern at her evasiveness, Dan's brow furrows and he says, "Blair, what is it? You must tell me."

"I will, I will," she says with a touch of insistence, though her gaze strays across the snowy expanse ahead of them. "Look – do you see that little house there? It was opened so I might have a look at it; let's see if it is still unlocked!"

Confused, Dan also turns his attention to the small house in the distance – and quite without warning or expectation, he finds his ankles kicked out from under him, and he crashes to his back in the snow. It startles him so much he can only laugh, struggling to a half-seated position as he reaches for his knocked-off hat.

Blair picks it up and sets it on his head. "Now I shall take advantage of your being indisposed to run away and win the race."

Indeed she does just that, darting ahead with hardly a pause as Dan calls after her, "I wasn't aware we were racing!"

Her green cloak is a streak of life against the tundra, the only living thing in all this white. He takes off after her a moment later and they meet again at the door of the cottage, both a little breathless with exertion and laughter. She looks like Snow White, the dark ringlets of her hair against her pale cheeks, now flushed from her run, and she looks happy and young; it reminds Dan that he too is capable of being happy and young, though so often now he feels bogged down by the responsibilities of proving himself a respectable kind of man.

"I knew you'd come," the Countess says, looking up at him with dark eyes fringed by dark lashes. Her lips, too, are like blood on snow; he'd like to see if the color would come off with a touch or if the deep blush of her mouth is natural and unpainted.

"That shows you wanted me to," he says, voice softer than he intends.

Her eyes are focused intently on his own as her lips part for a response, but all she asks is, "Where did you come from?"

Dan feels a moment's hesitation, as he does any time he must speak Blair or Nate's name to the other. "Bellomont," he says. "Nate invited me, but truly I only came because of your note."

She straightens, eyes narrowing warily. "Serena asked you to take care of me."

"Be kind to you, yes," Dan corrects. "But I didn't need any asking. Serena didn't send me along; I came here myself, if you will believe it or not."

"Because I am very evidently helpless?" she says. "You must all think me such a poor thing!"

"I think of you as a friend," Dan says gently. "I only seek to help, as you asked me. What happened?"

"Does anything ever happen in heaven?" Blair murmurs with the barest hint of bitterness, but then she says, "I will tell you. But inside, out of this cold, where we can be alone. Mr. Rose is ever so kind to me but I can never find a moment to myself in his home, and I do long for the peace of being alone with one's thoughts." She takes her slim white hand from the muff so she can twist the door handle and let them in. A fire still blazes cheerfully from her earlier visit and it is a charming, warm little cottage. "Once I craved such constant attention but now it only makes me feel as though I am on a stage before a dreadfully polite audience that never applauds."

Dan wonders sometimes if the amusement she oft inspires in him is an inappropriate reaction to have. "Ah, you don't like us!" he says, inanely pleased by the thought.

She glances at him over her shoulder as she moved further into the room. "Don't be so quick to count yourself amongst their number."

It is a phrase that, taken on his own, might cut him to the quick considering his efforts to become a member of society, but the compliment in her voice is obvious. She takes a seat, unhooking the clasp of her cloak as she does so, and Dan moves past her to stand by the heat of the fire. "You're laughing now, but when you wrote me, you were unhappy."

"Yes," she allows. "But I can't feel unhappy when you're here."

Dan does not turn to look at her. "I won't be here long."

"I know," Blair says quietly. "But I have grown so used to my unhappiness that I must seize each moment of respite."

The words make him ache. He wishes there was anything he could do for her, anything at all. He swallows a handful of replies that would be too cloying, too familiar, or too cliché; he fears the depth of his concern for her, which has grown so much in such a short time. He thinks they should not have come to this private little house together, not when the very purpose was confession.

Dan clears his throat and drifts over to the window, which overlooks the grounds all the way up to Skuytercliff and the road they had met on. "Tell me, Blair, if I'm really to be a help to you – what is it you're running from?"

Had she been running from him?

He is abruptly very grateful that the length of the entire room is between them; the distance seems very necessary. He hears her rise but still does not turn to look, hears her soft tread on the carpet but pays no mind – and he imagines, just for a moment, that she steps closer and slips her arms around him. Something in him almost seems to wait for it.

But just as he feels the companionable brush of her fingers against his, Dan sees a man coming up the path of the house and it startles an ugly laugh from him. Chuck Bass has come chasing after the Countess too, stomping his way through the snow to this very doorstep, and Bass is whom she is undoubtedly running from.

Dan pulls away from her, hand slipping free of her grip. "Is that it then?" he asks with a gesture outside.

Blair blinks, some of the color fading from her cheeks. "I didn't know he was here."

But Dan barely waits, instead crossing to throw the door open and push his way out, saying as he does, "Hello, Bass – this way! The Countess was expecting you."

Dan's intention is to sulkily remove himself from the premises, take the cutter back to Bellomont and be done with the whole damned day, but Blair and Bass end up joining him on the walk back to the house, where Mr. Rose cheerfully demands they remain for lunch.

The Countess' emotions are unreadable as they sometimes are, though Dan had begun to think he wasn't so awful at turning her pages. Bass' ill temper, however, is poorly concealed, and his sometimes-biting comments toward Dan reveal him to be at least part of its cause. When Bass is not being snide in Dan's general direction, he is speechifying at great length about the small house he found for Madame Grimaldi on a fashionable street at a reasonable price.

"And without even a hint as to your destination, I had to come hunting after you," Bass says. "Marching through the snow when I could be warm at home."

Madame Grimaldi only smiles slightly and sends a glance toward Dan that he does not return. Dan excuses himself shortly after lunch.

It seems clear that Bass is undeniably in pursuit of the Countess Grimaldi. Bass is a man of base pleasures and few morals, with attentions as freely given as they are snatched away. He had grown weary of his pretty wife after little more than a year and then began to make sport of conquering the other young wives in their set, to varying degrees of success. It was not unfathomable to Dan that Bass would turn his efforts to someone as lovely and lonely as the Countess.

Madame Grimaldi had quite obviously been running from Bass, but the real question was: had she wanted him to follow? She had not left word with Bass, true, and she had seemed both genuinely surprised and ever so slightly vexed by his appearance. But these were not definitive signs; after all, it could be that she was bothered by her feelings for him and seeking to escape them lest she give in – Bass showing up would certainly be vexing in such a scenario. There was also the possibility that it had been the kind of game of which Bass was indisputably fond, where she ran to entice him to chase. Such a plot would not have been above the Blair Waldorf of old.

Still, Dan doubts. It is a miserable, insidious thing to suspect so much of Blair without real proof outside of his own fears. Had she been pursued by any other man, Dan is not certain his reaction would be so volatile; he might even wish her happiness, inappropriate as it would be. Bass is too vulgar, too impertinent, too cruel to the women whose lives he passes through. Yet he is also well-traveled, culturally connected, fashionable, and deems most of the rules of New York society ridiculous. He is on the outside in the same way Dan is, but his greater wealth means he can have open contempt where Dan must bend and acquiesce. Dan can understand too how someone in Madame Grimaldi's position could be drawn to a person like Bass. He is probably not unlike her husband; she was attracted to such a man once, and what had attracted her once might do so again, even if it were against her wishes.

All this passes through Dan's mind on his journey south to St. Augustine. Held privately between two pages of the book on his lap is the note he received that morning from the Countess, which read _Come tomorrow and I shall explain all to you_.

He had made the decision to visit the van der Woodsens impulsively, which was quite unlike Dan. But the past few days had found him unable to concentrate even on the simplest or most pleasant of tasks and the note from the Countess had compounded his discomfort acutely. The only clear option seemed to be escape.

As Dan walks up the path leading to the van der Woodsens' picturesque white house with its black shutters, Serena emerges through the garden gate as though she had been called to him. Her hair is windswept and golden with sunlight, spilling over her shoulders and across her sun-browned face. Her skirt has dirt along the hem and her arms are full of flowers, blossoms of bright rosy pink and shining bluish lilac. There are daisies in her hair. Looking at her, Dan feels suddenly so _full_ , almost overwhelmed by the warmth she exudes so effortlessly. He wonders that he did not come sooner.

When he calls her name, Serena is caught by such surprise that she drops all the flowers – but then she smiles happily and comes darting across the multicolored heap to throw her arms around him. No one is around to chide her for such open affection and Dan is glad of it, returning her embrace almost too forcefully.

"I can hardly breathe," she murmurs, but presses a furtive kiss to his cheek before pulling back entirely. "You're here!" Worry crosses her face briefly. "Has anything happened?"

"Yes," he tells her with mock seriousness, "I found I had to see you."

"Lucky Daddy is your boss, or I'd imagine you'd be in some trouble," she teases, and though she does not mean it as a reproach in the slightest, Dan does prickle slightly at the reminder. He shakes it off as she pulls him toward the house by the hand, thinking: this is where he is supposed to be. This is his life, the life he chose for himself.

His appearance at the breakfast table is evidently unexpected, but the van der Woodsens recover admirably well. Mrs van der Woodsen is primly cordial in her usual way and Serena's brother Eric amiable as always; Mr van der Woodsen levels Dan with an amused look and says, "I suppose the firm is left in the lurch without either of us ¬– but no matter! After all the help you've given this family, you deserve a holiday, eh, my boy?"

He is so plainly referring to Dan's involvement in Madame Grimaldi's divorce, or rather lack thereof, that a rush of exasperation suffuses Dan and he cannot enjoy the rest of the meal.

Afterwards, Serena and her father go on a drive that they had planned the day before – Dan urging her to go along despite her offer to remain behind now that he's here – and Eric goes off with his friend Jonathan Whitney. Dan remains behind with the ever-disapproving Lily, and privately he's glad of the occasion to beg her once more to hasten the wedding.

"The entire family owes you thanks once more for intervening with dear Blair," Mrs van der Woodsen says. It is impossible to tell if this is meant sarcastically or not. "I can't imagine what was going through her mind."

"I imagine she thought her family would support her," Dan says, regretting the statement instantaneously. Her narrowed eyes find him over the lip of her teacup.

"Whatever my family has done, Daniel – or, rather, suffered – we do not countenance divorce."

"Of course," he says apologetically. "I never meant to imply."

The history of the Rhodes family is one better belonging to the kind of silly novels Jenny likes to read. First there was the abandonment of Mrs Celia Rhodes by her husband before their children were even out of the cradle, though she had never crumbled, nor shown anything but the most noble and personal sorrow. She had kept her place in society by sheer strength of will if nothing else and did not supplement the sordid truth of her life with even a single additional rumor. His death, distant as it had been, brought her innumerable wealth with which she spoiled her ill-behaved daughters; the spotlessness of Mrs Celia Rhodes' reputation always made it seem as though the troubles in her life were mere flies buzzing around her, and nothing she had any hand in herself. Both Lily and Carol had married young to tragic ends: Carol suffered the death of her young husband in an accident, and Lily absconded with a man far below her station, the resulting elopement ending in annulment. Lily remarried twice more: to a second husband much older, who passed away, and finally to Serena's father. It is a wonder they are so conservative with Madame Grimaldi, who is only a footnote in a decades-spanning story, but the Rhodes clawed their way back to respectability with too much fervor to relinquish it completely. And of course, a countess has more cache than a spinster.

But Serena's mother is still speaking. "I only bring it up because it really is due entirely to you; her grandmother could do nothing with her, and neither could my husband. And you know Serena with her ridiculous ideas was there supporting it all the while." Dan blinks, for Serena had said nothing of the sort to him and he had merely assumed she backed her family on the matter. "In fact Blair said so herself: the changing of her mind was all your influence." Mrs van der Woodsen's gaze passes over Dan in such a way to make him acutely aware of all of his flaws and she adds, perhaps with disbelief, "It seems she has some admiration for you. Well. Anything to set her back on course… If only she had married Nate Archibald all those years ago, as had been planned."

"I believe he and his new wife are very happy," Dan says.

"Of course." Lily waves a dismissive hand. "Once I had thought if he were not to take Blair as a wife, perhaps…" She shrugs. "But no matter."

Dan's mother and sister are great believers in fate but he sees now that fate is only a word for the determinations parents make for children. They arrange and suggest and outright demand; sometimes the outcome is to their liking and sometimes it isn't, but the fault for any wrongdoing is somehow never theirs. They wanted Blair to marry well and she did, and now their plan cannot be deviated from even if it means she might end up Bass' mistress instead of some decent man's wife.

Though it is not entirely their doing, as Mrs van der Woodsen said. Blair's fate was shaped by him as well, because he did not act from his own heart and mind.

He wonders what Mrs van der Woodsen would do if were to say all that. The woman rarely reveals any shock or offense, no matter what she feels privately. He studies her in the wan afternoon light: the wrinkles just beginning at the corners of her pursed lips, the blonde hair threaded through with gray, and he realizes for the first time that she was probably very much like Serena, once. She might've picked flowers to put in her hair. She ran away to get married against her family's wishes. She might've had ridiculous ideas, too. But now here she is, pinched and stately, pretending all of those actions belonged to another girl entirely. Perhaps in a way they did.

He wonders if Serena will grow tired and humorless one day too.

"Moreover it shows you were thinking of this family," Mrs van der Woodsen says. "Of Serena."

"I'm always thinking of Serena," Dan says, and rises, effectively ending the conversation. There will be no use in talking to Mrs van der Woodsen of the wedding; he can see that now.

 

 

 

 

His week in St. Augustine is drawing to a close.

The week has been slow and languorous, the Florida warmth pleasantly stifling after chill, snow-covered New York. Dan had attempted to take solace in such tranquil surroundings, but he found little.

He and Serena spent their days together, Dan occupied with reading while she swam or sailed. She had not read any of the poems in the book he'd sent prior to his arrival, but she was learning by heart a poem of his own making, a gesture that both surprised Dan and filled him with tender affection. It was a short, silly poem he gave her early in their courtship – in fact, it was the first thing he had ever read to her. Sometimes when her family was being particularly irksome, Serena would tilt closer and recite a few words of it softly in his ear.

The day before he is to depart, Serena proposes that they walk out to an old orange-garden just beyond the town. The sky is a cool, unblemished blue just grazing the emerald treetops, which bear their brightly-colored fruit like weighty Christmas baubles. It is a stunning background for Serena to stand against with her sunny curls and deep blue eyes, a lively figure beside his more dour silhouette. He wants Serena as much as he wants to be like Serena, to be free as she is and not bound by his own dark thoughts.

They take a seat on the grass, trees almost seeming to cocoon them on all sides. Serena releases herself from her hat, hair spilling loose again; though her mother often chides her for wearing her hair in such a way, Dan thinks it suits her best of all. She is like a nymph in a painting and her sylvan charm has never been so at home as in their current setting. Here is where she belongs, nestled in nature.

Being so truly alone is a rarity for them and they turn towards each other almost at once, Dan putting his arm about her as they meet in a kiss. It is the first kiss they've shared since Serena's abortive attempt in the Bass conservatory on the night of their engagement announcement and perhaps that is what leads to their becoming so ardent – or perhaps that is only how it will always go between them.

He knows Serena to be bold but had not suspected she would allow him such liberties, or that she would return his attentions so very eagerly. It would certainly be deemed indecent were they caught kissing as they are in the open air of the orange-garden but that's hardly an indictment to cease. His hands sink into all her lustrous hair as they press closer to one another and he feels Serena's gloved hands curl against his chest a moment before she pushes him back.

She seems almost shaken, which Dan supposes is not unsurprising for a girl who is new to things such as this. "I'm sorry," he begins, "I didn't intend to make you unco–"

"No," Serena says. "No, it isn't that."

His arm slides about her waist once more. "It's only all this waiting that is driving us both so mad," he says, seizing upon the opportunity to plead his case once more. "Don't you understand how I want you for my wife?"

Serena makes a sound of frustration and stands, her arms crossing to wrap around herself. "I'm not sure if I _do_ understand," she says. "Is it – Could it be that you're not certain of continuing to care for me?"

Dan stares at her with astonishment writ upon his features. "How could you ask such a question? I only find it foolish to dream away another year when we could be happy in mere weeks."

Serena's conflicted expression does not change. But then her back straightens and her arms drop to her side; she seems to grow in dignity and determination. "I know the affections of men are not always so honest," she says, rushed and low. "Is it only desire binding you to me?"

Dan is so startled to hear her speak in such a way that he can only stutter, "I – I don't know."

She seems so steady and still, standing there tall with her shoulders thrown back. "If that is so – is there someone else?"

"Someone else?" he repeats, now truly lost. "Someone else between you and me?"

Uncertainty must audibly tinge his voice, for Serena goes on, "Let us speak frankly, as we have not before. Lately I have felt a difference in you, particularly since our engagement has been announced." When Dan starts to protest, she cuts him off with a simple raised hand. "It won't hurt us to talk about it. In fact, I believe we must."

Finally Dan finds his voice. "If any of this were true, would I be imploring you to hasten our marriage? Would I drop all to come and see you?"

For a passive, silent moment she observes him. "You might," she says. "It is one way to settle the question, after all."

As Dan very nearly gapes at her, truly at a loss as to how they came to this during what was otherwise a very nice afternoon, he begins to notice the small fissures in her resolute façade. Perhaps her cheek is a little paler than usual, or her fingers tremble slightly; it is clear she is in some distress, and all he could hope to do is allay her fears.

"You can't think me insensible to my surroundings," Serena says. "Long before you told me that you cared for me, I'd known there was someone else; everyone was talking about it at the time. I remember how sad I felt for her when she was sent away, how sad I felt for you both to think you'd lost a chance at happiness."

Relief courses through him so as to make him dizzy. To think she was afraid because of his old affair with Rachel Carr –

He rises to join her, reaching tentatively for her hands. "Was that it? My dear, that – it was only a mistake of youth, that's all. It was a mistake."

"Mistakes are easy to make," she murmurs. She does not appear comforted. "You are certain? For I couldn't have my happiness made out of a wrong – an unfairness – to somebody else. I want to believe it would be the same for you."

"Of course," Dan says gently, daring to take her fingers more firmly in his. "What sort of life could we build on such foundations?"

Something in the words lets loose a fresh round of agitation and Serena pulls away once more, almost seeming to crumble with emotion. "Dan, I – There is something I have wanted to say for a very long time, though I have been counseled against it. The last thing I would want is to deceive you, or breed secrecy between us as I see between my mother and my father. I fear after I speak you will be finished with me, but I cannot marry you unless you know all."

It is now Dan's turn to feel ill-at-ease. "I promise nothing you could say would result in anything of the sort."

Serena looks at him with doubt. "You know that – that years ago Blair was engaged to Nate Archibald when it broke off very suddenly, and she married the Count. I know the common story is that it was Blair who broke it for that reason, but – but it isn't so. Their engagement broke off because of me."

"Because of you?" Dan echoes slowly.

"Because I allowed…" She clears her throat. "Because Nate and I engaged in…intimacies that were meant to wait for marriage." Before he can react to this, she continues swiftly, "It was nothing I set out to do, it only – it felt as though – as though it were a kind of natural extension of our friendship, though I realize with what poor judgment I acted. Blair's heart was broken. She did not forgive me for many years and in a way I fear she never will entirely –"

"It appears," Dan starts, though he takes a stagnant pause, so truly caught off guard that he doesn't have the faintest idea what to say, "that I ought to be asking _you_ if there is someone else."

"There isn't," Serena says insistently, hands now reaching for his numb ones. "I could never – My mother, when she discovered the truth, wanted us to marry but I couldn't, I had already hurt Blair so much, I couldn't take that from her also."

"Years have passed," Dan says. "A divorce would go against public opinion, surely, but if you feel yourself in any way pledged to Nate, don't give him up on my account."

The words visibly wound her and she flinches. "There is no pledge," she says. "No obligation – Such cases don't always present themselves so simply. It was –" Her voice seems to catch. "It was lust. It was only that. Besides, it was not –" And now her face is growing redder, her eyes shining wetly. "It was not only Nate. In the intervening years, my time abroad…" She trails off but when no response from Dan is forthcoming, she goes on. "My mother told me no good man would ever want me after all I've done but you're so truly good, Dan, and you do – or I hope you still do."

Even in the fog of this revelation, Dan feels a thread of revulsion for Lily van der Woodsen. To condemn a girl as genuine and sweet as Serena, especially having lived as Lily herself had –

It occurs to Dan that this is most likely why it took so long for Serena to marry and why he was even considered for her at all, if her family thinks as she says. But Dan had never heard an unkind word against her and, though there were sometimes comments on her supposed flirtatiousness, such claims as she is making certainly never circulated amongst the gossipers. Serena is much beloved, so if there was any hint of disreputable behavior, New York would have feasted upon it.

At the thought, the seed of revulsion takes root: how do any of them have any right, really, to cast aspersions? To some degree or other, they are all guilty of behavior that violates a set of rules put in place by – well, by who? By God? By all those ancient families? Dan doesn't know the source of their implicit code, only that he has found it contemptible his entire life and that ought not to change now; if anything, it should be cemented. Serena's virtues are not diminished for having behaved like any of the young men of Dan's set – for having behaved as Dan himself had.

He only wonders that Nate never revealed a hint of this. If any trust is to suffer after today, it may well be Dan's trust in Nate.

"Please, Dan," she says. "Tell me if you're finished with me."

"I am not finished with you," he says quietly. "As I told you I would not be."

Hope swells in her eyes. "You forgive me?"

"There is nothing to forgive," Dan says. "I cannot pretend I am not shocked, however…the injury is not mine. I hope not to be a hypocrite by castigating you when I have long expressed belief in each woman's right to her liberty. You know I have no great love for conventionalities." Though he bows to them again and again.

Serena flushes now with joy but still hesitates beside him, so Dan bends to kiss her once more in consolation. On her lips he tastes her silently-shed tears and it takes a moment for her to relax in his arms. This embrace does not possess the passion of the first and Serena ends up pressing her face to his neck as she releases a small, relieved sob. He runs a hand lightly over her hair.

"There," he says. "If there's no one and nothing between us, let us no longer delay; marry me, Serena, marry me quickly."

But conversation has been effectively exhausted for the afternoon, so her only reply is a tightening of her arms around him.

 

 

 

 

Upon arriving home, Dan scarcely has time to remove his coat before Jenny is bounding up to announce, "The Countess called on us while you were away!"

Dan sets his hat down. "Oh?"

Jenny nods with restrained excitement. Having any gossip to relay simply thrills her. "She had on a black velvet basque with jet buttons and a green muff and green feathers in her hat." Dan notes that today Jenny is wearing her green velvet dress and she has tucked a cluster of black feathers into the sweep of her hair. "She came alone on Sunday; even Dad was home, and of course we weren't expecting anyone – it was pure luck the fire was even lit in the drawing-room! Somehow she had the idea you were ill, though we all told her you were away."

Jenny watches him expectantly for some reaction or explanation but Dan only asks, "Is that the reason she called?"

He doesn't wait for her to answer before he goes into the sitting-room, where their Mother is alone at her reading. Jenny follows doggedly.

"No, she said she wanted to know us because you'd been so kind to her," Jenny says. "Do you know she even remembered the dress I wore to the masque she hosted all those years ago –"

Dan takes a seat beside his mother, interrupting Jenny's chatter to ask, "What did you think of her?"

His mother is not one for quick judgments, which sets her apart from the rest of the family, and she takes a long moment to make a pronouncement now. "I found her a little cold," she admits. "But I suppose I was expecting someone more in the mold of dear Serena."

"Ah," he says, "they're not alike."

For a moment he considers waiting until Jenny has gone to sleep and telling his mother what Serena spoke of to him in the orange-grove – for though it was the truth when he spoke of his belief in her liberty, the admission is still weighing on him. He doesn't fear recrimination from his mother but all the same, the idea of breaking Serena's confidence is abhorrent to him. So he only smiles and bids goodnight to both women, citing his own exhaustion as reason enough to disappear into his study.

The following night finds him passing by the club on his way home from work instead of going inside, afraid or just unwilling of meeting Nate inside.

He knows Nate would have married Serena had she been willing. Perhaps that is what bothers him most of all: how altered the outcome of his life might be had things progressed differently.

Almost a week into Dan's return, he finally brings himself to visit Mrs Celia Rhodes. He has been entrusted with several familial messages to relay to her but found himself faltering when it came time to call, unable to do so without tasting hypocrisy like something sour in the back of his throat. How to look her in the eyes now, this iron-willed matriarch with her charming dishonesty? How to be funny and pleasant when he is more aware than ever before of the duplicity of everyone in his life?

But the visit is something he simply has to do, and Dan is quickly becoming an expert at the things one must do regardless of one's personal wishes. In the end it is not altogether difficult, for Mrs Rhodes is entertaining and personable, and seems to like him for no reason Dan will ever understand. His sympathy is also sparked by how much frailer the old woman appears each time he sees her: she is a mere wisp of a woman lost in a swath of expensive skirts and luxurious jewels – though her eyes are sharp as ever, observing all with supreme amusement.

"I pleaded my case once more but feel I made no progress," Dan admits to her. "Serena's mother still doesn't wish us to be married in April, and I still don't see the use of wasting another year."

Mrs Rhodes purses her lips in something resembling a tiny smile. "My Lily is ruled by decades-old pettiness," she says, "Though I shan't elaborate for fear of spilling all our secrets… They want so badly to pretend they were never young and in a hurry – all my children are terribly impetuous and they all try to deny it. I used to think not one of them took after me but my dear Blair, though she's proven herself susceptible to the old family ways in the end." She doesn't seem particularly critical, though, and it seems clear she still favors Blair for the girl she used to be, the one who was almost as good at playing the game as Celia Rhodes herself. But then, with a malicious little twinkle in her eye, the old lady asks irrelevantly, "Now, why in the world didn't you marry my little Blair?"

Dan laughs. "For one thing, she wasn't there to be married."

"No, to be sure; more's the pity. And now it's too late – her life is finished." And that was pure dismissal, pure carelessness; he has seen how far affection stretches when reputation is on the line.

Grown suddenly uncomfortable, Dan clears his throat and presses, "Can't I persuade you to use your influence with the van der Woodsens, Mrs Rhodes? I wasn't made for long engagements."

She gives him another wry smile but before she can reply, there is a rustle at the doorway and Madame Grimaldi enters, removing her hat as she does. Something about the way she looks sets loose a wave of nostalgia in Dan. Perhaps it is the playfulness of her outfit, which is more in line with the fashions of her youth than she has dressed of late. She wears a white polonaise patterned with deep yellow polka dots over the torso and stripes at the sleeves and collar. A matching velvet bow curls festively at her throat, and the same yellow ochre is echoed in her underskirt. It's a color that sets her off wonderfully, drawing out the warmth in her brown eyes and hair. There is something about that color on her.

"My dear, you look just like springtime," Mrs Rhodes exclaims with pleasure. "Does she not, Mr Humphrey?"

"Indeed," Dan agrees with a nod, accepting Madame Grimaldi's hand as she passes him to kiss her grandmother's cheek. She looks pretty and gay, utterly unfettered.

"Do you know what I was just saying to Mr. Humphrey, my darling?" Mrs Rhodes continues, "I said to him: 'Now why didn't you marry my little Blair?'"

Blair is smiling when she looks at Dan, but there is something vacuous about it, a smile that telegraphs nothing more than politeness. "And what did he answer?"

"I leave you to find that out!" the old woman laughs. "He's been down to Florida to see his sweetheart."

Madame Grimaldi nods. "Yes; I called on your mother to ask where you'd gone. I sent a note that you didn't answer and I was afraid you were ill."

There is nothing to glean from her tone except civility. Dan apologizes, explaining that he left in quite a rush and intended to write from St. Augustine. This makes her laugh.

"And of course once you were there you never thought of me again!"

No, Dan realizes, it is not civility – it is indifference, cool and calculated. If she still needed him, she was determined not to let him see it. For some reason the thought stings and he loses his words, no confirmation or denial of her statement leaving his lips. He had not thought of her, and he had thought of her all the while.

"Someone thought of you, my dear," Mrs Rhodes interjects, that same malicious twinkle back in her eyes. "Do look at the card attached to the flowers there."

Madame Grimaldi turns, seeming to notice for the first time an impressively large bouquet of crimson roses and purple pansies beaming from the sideboard. At once her demeanor changes, though it is difficult to pinpoint how, exactly: she seems to become taller, her limbs tight with tension and resolve.

"This is not my home," she says carefully, but there is danger lurking in her tone, "Why would flowers be sent to me here?"

"Perhaps someone did not know where to find you," Mrs Rhodes remarks blithely. "Or thought they might have more luck this way!"

Blair gravitates towards the roses, picks up the card, and scans it absently before tearing it to pieces. "Who is ridiculous enough to send me a bouquet?" she snaps. "I am not going to a ball; I am not engaged to be married. I suppose some people are always ridiculous."

She grips the vase and exits in a great hurry, calling for the maid impatiently. Dan watches the incident with bemusement, but before he can inquire as to the source of her displeasure, Mrs Rhodes says, "We do owe you do much for your part in deterring Blair from her ridiculous divorce."

Dan wishes people would stop thanking him for that. "I simply gave her a legal opinion, as she asked me to," he says stiffly.

She smiles again; it appears less pleasant each time. "Little did you know that at that very moment I was being appealed to from the other side of the Atlantic! The Count himself asks me to speak on his behalf; he wants to take her back, though of course only on her own terms."

Dan can only stare at her with horror, though she greets it with her typical humor.

"Don't look so scandalized, Mr. Humphrey! I don't defend poor Louis; he doesn't defend himself. He casts himself at her feet. He has been writing me these last weeks, utterly desolate."

"Writing you?" Dan repeats blankly. "I – Has the Countess seen the letters?"

She shakes her head. "It will take time. You know my Blair as well as I – she can be haughty, intractable, unforgiving."

Appalled, Dan says flatly, "To forgive is one thing, but to return to that hell –"

"Ah, yes, so she describes it, the sensitive girl," Mrs Rhodes says, gaze drifting towards the door Blair had left through. "But in my description of her I neglected something important, wouldn't you agree, Daniel? Since her youth, she has been a great connoisseur of beautiful things, a devotee to luxury; do you know what she is giving up? Those roses are mere trifles – the Count has acres of them in his terraced gardens at Nice! Jewels – historic pearls, the Sobieski emeralds – sables, gowns. She was simply surrounded by art and beauty – pictures, priceless furniture, music, conversation. I myself have seen the opulence in which she lived and there's no equal to it here, no comparison! She tells me she is not thought handsome in New York – her portrait has been painted nine times; the greatest artists in Europe have begged for the privilege. Are these things nothing? Not to mention the remorse of an adoring husband."

Again Dan seems to taste something sour, though perhaps the word for it now is akin to resentment. Things, things, things, always things; always he is reminded of _things_ and their cost, things that he himself could never afford, signs of status that only count when purchased with money older than death. Dan had grown up wanting only some books, and comfort for his family; now acquired, his wealth will still never be equal to that which came long before it.

Blair did once crave all of those things. He sees that her family assumes she will be easily tempted again.

"She knows nothing yet of all of this?" he asks.

Mrs Rhodes touches a finger to her lips. "Nothing directly – but does she suspect? I bring it to you because we all know Blair admires you, listens to your opinions. You ask for my support with Serena, and I hope that in return it would be possible to count on your support here, with Blair, once more."

"To convince her to go back?" he says, and hears in his own voice the dangerous tension there was in Blair's.

"Marriage is still marriage," Mrs Rhodes answers lightly. "My granddaughter is still a wife."

"I would never advise her to do such a thing," he says tersely and then takes his leave, though he runs into a returning Madame Grimaldi in the entrance hall. Anger has lent color to her face, but she appears otherwise calmed.

"What do you think of me in a temper?" she muses, then, "Are you going?"

He wants to say that in a temper she is so reminiscent of her old self that it could be no time has passed; somehow the thought comforts him. Instead he asks, "When can I see you?"

She gives him a studied, inscrutable look. "Whenever you like," she says finally. "But it must be soon if you want to see the little house again. I'm moving next week."

A pang shoots through Dan. He has grown inexpressibly fond of the little house, seeing it as something of a bridge from his past to his present. He had spent only a few brief hours there but they felt so important, so distinct. "Tomorrow evening, then?"

"Tomorrow evening," she agrees. "But early; I'm going out."

The picture of her in her yellow-and-white dress is fixed in his mind's eye as he makes his way home. It stirs something in him (her temper, her anger-flushed cheeks, the golden ochre of her gown), a fleeting memory of older days.

A ball. He had been fifteen, perhaps; it was hard to recall. The Humphreys' newfound wealth had made Dan into something of a novelty, but his tongue-tied uncertainty took the varnish right off and most everybody tired of his conversation quickly. The only person who had danced with him was Serena, but she danced with everyone.

Serena was the belle of the night, as she usually was, in a glittering golden dress dripping tinsel. She looked like a fairy queen, like she had been touched by Midas; every light she passed beneath caught in all that gold, illuminating her impossible beauty. She smiled at Dan as they danced but her gaze pulled elsewhere. The warmth of her hand in his burned him. He loved her then. With one touch, he loved her.

After their dance, Dan lingered at the edges of the room. He was a spectator, as always, and it was only as a spectator that he could enjoy these people and their world. He could enjoy them as he did one of his father's shows: as artificial and costumed performers merely imitating real life. None of them understood a thing about reality, Dan felt certain. But still, there amongst them, included and excluded at once, he felt a kind of yearning. He would not recognize it at envy for many years, so it only made him angry, and impotent in his anger.

Blair had been Serena's pale echo. Ochre had been the color of her gown, deep dull yellow embroidered with gold thread, and though it warmed her fair skin, it didn't set her aflame like Serena. Blair was mere candlelight, appropriate and pretty but not set apart. She did not wear Nate Archibald's ring, not yet.

A boy their age asked her to dance and Blair laughed at him, said something cutting with cruelty glittering in her eyes. Nearby, Dan's jaw had tensed. It was a genuine surprise that she noticed.

"Do you disapprove?" Blair called. "I thought it my right to refuse whoever I wanted."

"I don't dispute your freedom, Miss Waldorf," Dan said. "Only your tone."

"Ah," she said. "Then I don't argue your judgment, just your choice of tie."

His frown deepened. "Does your expensive education not include etiquette?"

She laughed, but he thought, as he always thought in her presence, that there was something very mean about it. That was her most definitive quality in his eyes: she was far from kind. "How scathing, Mr. –" She paused. "My apologies, I have absolutely no idea who you are."

"Humphrey," he said shortly. "Scathing – what a paradoxical comment coming from you."

She rolled her eyes. "Mr. Humphrey, if you insist upon being so sour at every dance, perhaps you ought not to come at all. It seems to me that you spend a good deal of your time at events you disapprove of."

"It's not the place I take issue with," Dan muttered. "It's the treatment."

"What does that mean?"

"Surely you're intelligent enough to figure it out."

She smiled, again rather meanly. "Ah, don't ask me. I don't speak your language."

 

 

 

 

As it had the last time, the Countess' neighborhood fills Dan with an unreachable nostalgia. It is not the place where he grew up but it is close enough to both the age-tinted memory and the future he once thought he might have that it pains him a little to walk the streets. It seems sweeter to him than the home he knows he will have, chosen for him and Serena by her parents and paid for by them too. Here he can taste a certain kind of freedom – one of choice – and he understands why the Countess might've decided to come her, antithetical as it might seem to her former tastes.

Wisteria hangs prettily over her doorway and Dan reaches up spontaneously to break off a little sprig and tuck it into his pocket. Tonight he feels odd and restless. It occurs to him that it is not only tonight; he has felt this way for a very long time.

As before, Dorota ushers him in to an empty sitting room. "Dressing," she explains, waving towards the upper floors before excusing herself. Dan is rather glad for the moment alone to familiarize himself with the little room, which he has grown so fond of and will not see again after tonight.

"Dan?"

At her voice, Dan turns, finding Blair standing in the doorway with the very slightest of smiles. "Mr. Humphrey," she amends, stepping into the room and holding out a hand for his. For the second time that week, he is reminded of the long-ago ball; even now she is reminiscent of it in a dress that glimmers gently like the flickering candles decorating the room. Her hair is a little softer than she usually wears it and the whole image altogether is both subdued and mature. She is a woman, no longer the arrogant girl she once was, though that girl is there too if one looks to see her, there in the way Blair carries herself: shoulders set and head high, the way she used to challenge rooms full of rivals.

"Countess," he says in answer. The atmosphere feels very hushed suddenly.

They sit and share cigarettes, making pointless small talk for a few minutes until Dan says, "May I ask you a question?"

"If it's a good one," she says.

Dan is not in a particularly humorous mood, though he likes to see it on her. "Your grandmother…" but then he falters.

"Ah, I knew she'd said something about me," Blair says. "Well?"

"It's only…" Again, he hesitates. "I only wondered if she is always truthful."

Blair considers this. "In almost everything she says, there's something true and something untrue," she says, and half-smiles again. "I believe I learned that from her. Why do you ask?"

It is difficult for him to be so blunt about this particular topic, but he is very conscious of how short their evening is; any minute her carriage will arrive to carry her away. Dan wonders where she is going tonight. He hadn't asked, and now the time is too short for such trivial questions. He often wonders how she occupies her time. "The other day, she said – she intimated that Count Grimaldi has asked her to – well, to persuade you to return to him."

Her lips purse, but aside from that she does not react.

"You knew, then?"

Still silent, she takes a long, slow drag and then taps some ash onto a little dish. "Granny had hinted… It is to be expected."

What a thing to expect! "She believes you will go back," he says, almost angry – angry that Mrs Rhodes would think such a thing, and angry that Blair expects such a thing to be thought.

The Countess looks at him with a restrained expression that he cannot read. "Many cruel things have been believed of me," she says. "Some of them were true."

"Blair…" he says (has he said her name since he left her at Skuytercliff? Had he allowed himself to?).

"I suspect Granny feels I am to blame in the whole thing," she muses. "Perhaps I am. My husband believed I loved him, but I wanted his title and his money and his admiration. I thought all of those things together were next to love, but I was mistaken." She arches an eyebrow. "You're shocked."

"At your candor."

She gives a small, heartless shrug. "I deceived him, and myself too," she says. "Did I deserve his cruelty then?"

"No," Dan says with firm immediacy. "And anyone who would seek to return you to such a situation is a fool, and a callous one at that."

Blair studies him for a long moment during which Dan does not look away, as though to further convince her of his conviction. "You are kind, Mr. Humphrey," she says finally. "Serena is lucky. And I know she adores you – I was surprised you couldn't convince her about the wedding. Serena is the last person to be slave to such rules and superstitions."

There is a faint, twisting irony in her voice. Dan cannot source it.

Agitation courses through him once more and he rises to stand at the mantle, hand curling over one of the little porcelain figures there. He is so very conscious of their numbered minutes, and how fast those minutes are slipping away.

"When I went to see her – to see Serena, we had a frank talk," he says. "Our first. She confessed a great many things to me. She thinks my impatience a bad sign. Due to some – some events in her history, it led her to think that I…that perhaps I want to marry her at once to get away from someone that I care for more."

He can feel Blair's gaze on him but he doesn't turn to meet it. "If she thinks that, then why isn't she in a hurry too? I would be, in her place."

Dan shakes his head slightly. "She wants time, to give me time to –"

"Time to give her up for the other woman?"

"If I want to."

A breath of silence. Blair says, "How noble."

He imagines he can hear the irony in her voice again. "Yes, but it's ridiculous."

"Because you don't care for anyone else," she says evenly.

"Because I don't mean to marry anyone else," Dan corrects.

There is another long interval, so long that Dan finally turns and, catching his eye, Blair says, "This other woman, does she love you?"

"There's no other woman," he says impatiently. "At least not who she was thinking of –"

There is the clatter of horses' hooves on cobblestones; her carriage is here. Blair straightens, reaching for her fan and gloves mechanically. Her absent eyes seek the window but she does not stand. "I suppose I must be going."

"To Mrs. Dickens'?"

"Yes." She gives him another smile, the one that doesn't show in her eyes. "I must go where I am invited, or I should be too lonely."

Their time together has run out but that only makes Dan more desperate to extend it. He wants to keep her here just another moment, another hour; he eyes the gloves and fan she holds as though he could compel her to drop them.

"Serena guessed the truth," he says quietly. "There is another woman – just not the one she thought."

Blair is very still, her face turned so he can only see her profile against the pale blue silk wall. After a moment he sits down beside her and takes her hand, uncurling her fingers so the gloves and fan fall from them. That seems to jolt her into action, for she finally does stand, putting the width of the room between them.

"Don't make love to me," she rebukes. "Too many people have done that."

Dan flushes, standing too. "I'm not," he says. "I never have. But you are the woman I would have married if it had been possible for either of us."

"Possible?" she repeats with a sudden, astonished laugh. And again, this time scoffing, "Possible? You say that when it's you who has made it impossible?"

Dan stares at her. " _I've_ made it impossible?"

Clawing through her cool disbelief is deep, passionate outrage. "You!" she accuses again. "You made me give up divorcing – you spoke to me of sacrificing myself to spare my family the scandal! And because you were to be my family, for your sake – your sake and Serena's, I did what you asked!" Hand on her mouth as that mirthless laughter sparks again, "I've made no secret of having done it for you!"

The air between them has never before felt quite so thick. Dan is nearly gaping at her. "The things in your husband's letter –"

"I had nothing to fear from that letter!" she snaps. "I have experienced the whole sweep of it, I have nothing left to fear – except bringing more scandal on my family – on you and Serena."

Lost and unable to speak, Dan only looks at her. Color is high in her cheeks; anger has brightened her countenance, and tears shine in her eyes. The silence seems to ring in Dan's ears and he doesn't know what to say.

But then she buries her face in her hands, a small sob tearing its way from her throat, and Dan is spurred into action. He's at her side immediately, briefly uncertain before he draws her into an embrace.

"Blair," he murmurs, hand curving around the back of her head. "Nothing's done that can't be undone. I'm still free, and you're going to be."

Her crying is soft and noiseless but he can feel it in her body, the way her shoulders shake. His fingers press to her wet cheek and his lips follow, a small alleviating kiss that she turns unexpectedly to meet. If Dan thought the room airless before, he was mistaken; there is nothing except the sweetness of her mouth against his, the convulsive grip of her fingers in his coat. It amazes him that they have not kissed before this moment. He understands now why she is always keeping the length of the room between them, though distance only breeds complications and touching her has made everything so simple.

But then Blair pushes him aside, moving past him to perch on the edge of the sofa. He puts a hand to his lips.

"You know this doesn't alter things," she says with resignation. "Not in the least."

"It alters everything for me," he says incredulously. "Do you see me marrying Serena after this?"

"You say that because that is what one says in situations like this, not because it's true. In truth, it's too late to do anything but what we have both already decided on."

"We've no right to lie to other people, or to ourselves," he says with certainty. Then, "Serena is ready to give me up."

It's Blair's turn to be incredulous. "What, three days after you entreated her on your knees to hasten your marriage?"

Dan presses his lips together. "She confessed a great many things to me," he says. "I know I'm not the first she – loved. She would understand better than any –"

"Ah," Blair interrupts softly, looking away. "Now am I to do to her what she did to me? There was a time when I would have done exactly that, and just for that reason. But not now."

"I don't understand you," he says.

Dan thinks he now recognizes the expression on her face when she looks at him: a kind of wry affection shot through with sadness. "I know," she says. "You don't understand because you haven't yet guessed how you've changed things for me. I hadn't even known all you'd done, not until Granny blurted it out one day. I was – I was perfectly unconscious of just how much I was disliked, it seems people refused to even meet me at dinner. I found out afterwards how you'd made your mother speak to Cyrus Rose on my behalf; and how you'd insisted on announcing your engagement at the Basses' ball so I would have two families standing behind me instead of one. New York, to me, was simply coming home. I thought things would be just as they were, as they had been once. It was naïve, but…" She gives a slight shrug. "And you… You see, once I had been so very good at all of this, at being one of them. But even before I learned of their distaste for me, I found it hard to slip into old ways. It's like an old dance whose steps I remember but cannot make my feet perform. And you, better than anyone, you knew that. You knew because I treated you once how they treat me now. You knew because you were not born into this world. You understood me. You could see the disloyalty and cruelty and injustice of the world and you hated the things it asks of one. You hated the manipulations and the dishonesty. That was what I'd never known before."

Her speech calms her, bringing back the new composure she returned to New York with, the composure of a woman who has nothing left to fear. He sits beside her and slips his hand into hers; Blair covers his hand with both of her own, entreating him with a gaze so warm that it's a wonder anyone could ever think her cold.

"Don't let us undo what you've done," she says, softly urging. "I can't go back now to that other way of thinking. I can't love you unless I give you up."

His only thoughts are juvenile and selfish. He wants to take her in his arms again and sweep away her arguments with a kiss but the space between them is once again impassable. He bends to press his mouth to her knuckles, the cool metal of her ring beneath his lips.

The sound of the bell startles them both and they release each other, turning to the door for the cause of this new interruption. After a moment Dorota enters; Blair dismisses her carriage for the evening, saying she will not go out; Dorota nods and hands Blair a telegram that must have just arrived. Blair reads it quickly, expressionless, and then hands it to Dan.

It is dated from St. Augustine.

It reads: _Granny's telegram successful! Papa and Mama agree marriage after Easter. Am telegraphing Dan. Too happy for words and love you dearly. Your Serena._

Half an hour later Dan finds a similar yellow envelope waiting for him in the hall table of his home. The message inside is similar but he reads it again and again in the dim hall light until he becomes distracted by Jenny's loitering figure on the stairs. No item of his correspondence is safe from Jenny.

"I waited up on purpose," Jenny says. "I hope there's no bad news?"

He seems to see her through a fog.

"Dan," she says, "What's the matter?"

"Nothing," he says finally. For some strange reason he laughs. "Nothing's the matter, except I'm going to be married in a month."

Jenny nearly jumps and, with an exclamation of happiness, darts down the stairs to throw her arms around him. "Oh Dan, how wonderful! I'm so glad! It's just as you wanted! But, Dan, why do you keep on laughing? Do hush, or you'll wake the house!"


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If he thinks of the Countess at all, it is simply as the most plaintive and poignant of a line of ghosts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For this section specifically I kind of want to say – this is a third person limited pov, limited to Dan ofc, and not omniscient, so some things he thinks are definitely not ~the absolute truth~ and ought to be taken with a grain of salt. I think that's something I could say about all my fics but I felt it needed to be said here because Dan is huffy and angsty and not thinking particularly flattering things about people.

The day is ideal from the outset: the wide Vermeer sky, blue and soft with clouds, stretching over the gray church and the gentle breeze stirring the flowered hats of slowly-arriving ladies, making all the gentleman hold onto their brims. Inside Grace Church it is cool and shadowed, golden with candles. The sunlight strains through the stained glass, leaving colorful patterns in a path Dan follows straight to the altar. He had been signaled over by Nate, his best man, which must indicate Serena's imminent arrival. Dan finds it difficult to return Nate's encouraging smile; indeed, he's had trouble in the last weeks spending any amount of time in Nate's company at all.

It isn't only Serena's revelations that have cooled Dan towards Nate. In the intervening time, Dan has gone over Nate's behavior in his mind, particularly the days following Blair's reentry into society. Nate had been so noble in his forgiveness of Blair, so reserved on the topic, and all the while it was because he knew he'd been in the wrong. Yet he could not admit it, not to Dan or his family, and he'd let them all go on thinking Blair had been the one at fault. It is an old grudge, and it isn't even really Dan's, but he finds it invading his thoughts regardless.

Dan stands at the altar with his hands clasped, gaze roving over the church, which is so thick with lilies and wildflowers that one might for a second be tricked into thinking they were outside. Sunlight warms the aisle between the pews like stage lights, drawing Dan's eye back and back, all the way to where the bridesmaids lurk in the lobby. It reminds him of the first night at the Opera, in many ways: the stage is set, the curtains drawn, and they all await the leading lady's grand entrance. He sees all the same faces in the audience as well – the Archibalds and Vanderbilts, Penelope in posy pink, dark hair distinct in a sea of blonde relatives. The Basses are there, Chuck looking bored already and his wife sighing a little into her chinchilla stole. And lastly, but not at all least, Dan's own family giving him proud and nervous smiles from the very front of the church. Who would have ever thought that they would be in this position, marrying off their eldest child into one of New York's most prominent families? Thanks to him, Jenny would probably do even better; she might even land herself a Vanderbilt.

There is nothing left for him to think of: the details have all been seen to, the plans arranged, the fees paid. All Dan must do is recite his lines and hits his marks. Everything is equally easy – or equally painful, as one chose to put it – in the path he is committed to tread.

"Do you have the ring?" Nate asks, respectfully hushed.

Dan performs the action all bridegrooms perform, hands patting over his pockets until the shape of the little ring makes itself known. "I have it –" he starts to reply, but is cut off by the sudden opening of the door. His breath seizes, but no – it's only someone having a look before closing it again. It seems the entire congregation has taken an anticipatory breath too, all of them eager to glimpse the bride. They wait, and then the door opens again, for real this time.

Murmurs ripple through the crowd as excited interest rises. First to come are Mrs. van der Woodsen and Eric (her deep mauve gown met with a rumble of general approval), followed by Serena's aunt, and finally the great lady herself, Mrs. Celia Rhodes, aided by two young Rhodes cousins on either side. This produces shocked gasps in the audience; her frailty has left her notoriously housebound, and Mrs. Rhodes has hardly been seen outside of her own home in years. There had been rumors, of course, that she might attend the wedding, but they were generally dismissed out of hand. It was a true and genuine surprise.

Perhaps Dan should feel honored, but he doesn't feel very much of anything at all.

He waits to see if anyone else follows, but Mrs. Rhodes appears to be the end of the familial train. He feels a nudge from Nate, hears a murmured, "She's here," and forces his back to straighten, snaps himself to attention. The music begins.

The bridesmaids come first, a chorus of dancers before the prima ballerina, all in soft blues that echo the bright day outside. Dan's gaze passes over them indifferently until he suddenly looks twice, heart contracting painfully in his chest. He briefly attempts to convince himself that it's merely his thoughts playing tricks, but no – no, it truly is Blair. Through his haze he fancies there is almost something apologetic in her expression, though she keeps her eyes averted.

She is the maid (or is it matron now?) of honor, of course. There could be no excuse good enough to exempt her from the wedding of her dearest friend and closest cousin. Blair had gone away abruptly to Washington some weeks ago, ostensibly to visit with an ill acquaintance ("I don't understand," Serena had complained, "Blair hates any sign of sickness; she wouldn't even call on me when I had the sniffles!") but he'd heard nothing of her returning for the wedding.

Blair comes to stand at the altar in front of the other girls, practically right across from Dan, but he sees her only in his peripheral vision, compelling himself to look only at Serena. As he does, he feels his heart resume its usual task. He slips his hand into his pocket to fiddle with the ring, sliding it halfway up his own finger, where it is stopped because of its small size, designed as it is for Serena's slender fingers. Engraved inside it: _Dan to Serena, April 24, 1876_.

She is radiant. There's no denying that. His numbness, like ice in his unfeeling veins, seems to melt at the sight of her open, elated expression. When her father hands her off, her touch nearly burns Dan. As one they turn to the Rector, and the ceremony begins.

They are married in a matter of minutes, though to Dan it seems to span the length of a blink. The words come to him through a great fog, made unintelligible by the time they reach his ears, but he must respond appropriately because soon enough they are walking arm-in-arm down the aisle again to the cheers of the onlookers. They are husband and wife.

Once outside, they are helped into the borrowed brougham. Serena is against him in a sudden puff of warm satin, her lace-covered arms about his neck and her mouth against his. He laughs without being able to tell if there is humor in it and feels a little relief without it being even slightly akin to comfort. Then there is her hand on his cheek. "Darling, it's like you've seen a ghost."

He gives her a smile, however weak. "I had too much time to think of every horror that might possibly happen – everything that could potentially go wrong."

Serena smiles. She is so sweet and pretty. "But nothing can now," she says, stroking his cheek as she kisses him again. "Not as long as we two are together."

The wedding breakfast is a hurried and hectic affair, and no sooner is it over than they are rushed to the train station. The Liftons have lent them a charming country house in which to spend their first night or two of marriage, an offer they rapidly accepted as it was thought very fashionable to have a country house lent to one. From there they would go on to their tour of Europe, but for now, at least, they are finally alone in their train compartment after a day of being hustled to and fro, parading and chatting and never resting. Dan feels such exhaustion that he only slumps in his seat and stares out the window, book untouched on the seat beside him.

They have never been alone together in this way. They have taken plenty of stolen moments, or carefully arranged faux seclusion with a chaperone lurking nearby. But with the exception of the afternoon in the orange-grove they have never known the intimacy of true privacy, and they have never been alone together as husband and wife.

It startles him when she speaks.

"I was so happy Blair was able to come after all." She gazes wistfully out the window instead of looking at him, but there seems no hidden motive to it; she only wants to see the countryside go by outside, that's all. "I… I feel now that I might be truly forgiven. I heard her agree to visit with Granny for a little while, and I do hope she's convinced to stay; all I can hope for is to regain the closeness we had as children." She turns a smile brimming with optimism his way. "Aside from my hope for our personal happiness, of course."

"Of course," Dan answers, feeling prompted. "But we are already perfectly happy, so feel free to turn your prayers in other directions."

Serena's smile widens so that her eyes crinkle before she returns to the window, everything in her posture suggesting tranquility. He wonders at that. It is as though he barely inhabits his skin and Serena is hardly an acquaintance, let alone a wife. She is a stranger sitting across from him. It is like he's seeing a beautiful girl at a glamorous party and thinking: what is going on inside her head? What paths do her thoughts take? It seems to him a maze of secrets no man could hope to find his way through. Perhaps once he had understood Serena, or seemed to. Now Dan isn't sure he understands anything.

He believes Serena will probably take each experience as it comes to her, just as she always has, but never anticipate them; he believes she will carry her guilt until the moment it is unloaded and then be free of it forever. But he isn't sure how much stock he puts in belief these days.

When they arrive at their destination, they are met unexpectedly by an emissary of Cyrus Rose. Apparently there had been a minor accident at the Liftons' – just some flooding, nothing of lasting consequence but serious enough to make it uninhabitable for the night. Mr. Rose, upon hearing of this, immediately stepped forever to offer the small cottage on his property, a Platoon house, for their use.

"How kind!" Serena exclaims. "Why, he shows it to so few people – but I know once he had it opened for Blair, and she told me what a darling little place it is: she said it's the only house she's seen in America where she could imagine being perfectly happy."

 

 

 

 

Prior to his wedding, Dan Humphrey's mother had taken him aside to say, "The first six months are always the most difficult, my dear. It may do well to remember that."

Three months into their extended wedding-tour, the newlyweds have found themselves at half past that well-meant warning though Dan couldn't ascribe any particular difficulty to their union. There was compromise, but there was always to be compromise, and he had been prepared for that. In fact, he has found acquiescence easier than he might have thought he would.

It has not been a secret to either of them that their interests diverge in many ways. Serena tries, but she has no great love for strolling through museums or seeing the sights. She has been through Europe many times before and this is only Dan's first excursion, so her knowledge and experience greatly exceeds his, lending her little patience for the usual spectacles. Instead Serena wants to have fun: to swim and ride and sail, to explore anything unknown to her. They have been to Switzerland and Normandy, to Paris to order Serena's clothes for the season and now to London to order his. They did not pass through Italy as he wanted, but it was most likely for the best.

Minor complications aside, it has been an easy trip. Serena is happy, or seems so, and her joy has always been rather infectious. He finds it hard to wallow in melancholy with her at his side: the hint of a frown is always soothed by her kiss, a lonely sigh remedied by her laughter. In the whirlwind he has hardly been allowed to settle, for during the day there are her many activities to occupy their time and at night they lose themselves to passion. A part of him knows it will always be like this between them, and that Serena will be a balm to his troubled mind as much as he will let her. And when they have children, the vacant corners in both their lives will be filled.

They discover ways to share adventure. Though it is not for respectable married people or innocent ladies, Serena shows him a bit of the Europe of her past: the parties, the gambling, the dazzling ladies and charming dandies. They get drunk together on emerald liquor and dance until Serena breaks the heel of her newest brocade boot. They spend money with a carelessness Dan has never before encountered, and which leaves a rotten feeling in his stomach.

During one such indecent outing, at a dance hall no Rhodes should be caught dead in but a Humphrey could probably pass through, they run into a gaggle of Serena's old acquaintances. She greets with customary friendliness until she catches sight of one young man in the crowd and becomes suddenly flustered, which is quite unlike her. Dan is just intoxicated enough to want to converse with her old crowd, but Serena draws them away quite soon after that. And even sooner she entreats him to return to the hotel.

It had been a mad, lovely night, Serena glowing like a beacon in the dimness of the hall. Under the streetlamps her cheeks are flushed pink, but her eyes have lost their spirited gleam. Dan assumes the man must've been one of the many she'd alluded to, and so reviews him again in his mind's eye: somewhat taller than Dan with a sturdier build, and a cockiness to the way he held himself.

"You were startled," Dan says once they're in the carriage, Serena close to his side due to a touch of rainy chill in the London air.

"No, only surprised a little," she says. "I've put that behind me now, but to see them all – well, I suppose it brought it back."

"It wasn't all of them, though, was it?" Dan presses, for what reason he could not say. "It was the man."

Serena pulls her lower lip between her teeth a moment. "I knew him," she allows. "His name is Carter Baizen."

A familiar enough name, though Dan has never met the son: the Baizens are a relatively prominent family, and they had been guests at the wedding. "He's the rogue, isn't he? Left New York years and years ago?"

She shrugs, clearly unwilling to say much more on the matter. However, she does offer, "He isn't as bad as all that. He did me something of a favor once, and for that I'll always be grateful."

It is enigmatic enough to strike an unsettling note in Dan, but he says nothing more. She is entitled to secrets as much as he is, and he shouldn't press for hers without being willing to give up his own in return.

 

 

 

 

The Basses' summer home at Newport presides grandly over a wide apple green lawn that tumbles down into the bottle blue sea. The air is crisp and fragrant, the sun stunningly bright – it is, all in all, a rather perfect sort of day.

The crowd milling around the grounds and taking advantage of the shade of the verandah are all vaguely focused in one direction, towards two large targets set against backdrop of purple geraniums. A collection of girls in white muslin stand opposite the targets with bows in hand. Every so often one will step up to loose an arrow, sighing in either disappointment or contentment depending upon where it hits. The Newport Archery Club always holds its August meeting at the Basses'.

Returning to Newport this summer had not been Dan's choice.

However, he had been unable to overrule the entirety of the Rhodes clan, and Serena especially proved impossible. After a long stuffy winter, she was eager to see the sun and to reacquaint herself with old friends, considering she had missed out on it all last year thanks to their honeymoon. He hadn't found any excuse convincing enough to dissuade her. How could he? If he professed his true feelings, she would only call him silly and kiss him and they would go anyway.

The fact of it is that Dan feels more the outsider than ever before.

He has been so readily accepted by the very same people who had once so readily shut him out and the disingenuousness of it is revolting to him. He had never thought of himself in the terms he often applied to Jenny. She craves society in a way he never thought he did, though he sees now that he had wanted the acceptance and the admiration of those that shunned him. He had wanted it for petty reasons, for selfish ones, but now that he has gained it (and though marriage, no less) it is anathema to him. Now that he is finally in, all he wants is out.

He misses the escape of their time in Europe even more acutely than he did all winter long.

There is a slight hush to the crowd as Serena steps up to try her hand at the target, stirring Dan from his sulking. She looks more Diana-like than ever with the bow in her gloved hands, strands of hair swept across her face. The ivy in her hair has taken off with the other girls, who all try to mimic the effect with none of Serena's panache. She reminds him now of how she looked the night of their engagement.

Dan cannot help the pride he feels to be Serena's husband. It isn't just her beauty but that specific brand of bone-deep loveliness that seems to make her the subject of high regard in every social circle. No one could be jealous of her triumphs when she managed to give the impression that she would have been just as happy without them.

Despite his ever-vacillating feelings on his standing in this world he chose to inhabit, Dan lays no blame at Serena's door. He had married because he had been infatuated with a perfectly charming girl who loved him despite his impoverished past as he loved her despite her imprudent one. To him, she was peace, stability, companionship – and the steadying sense of inescapable duty.

There needed to be an end to his rather aimless sentimental adventures, anyway. Sometimes Dan recalls that he once dreamed briefly of marrying the Countess Grimaldi, an odd stray thought over which he has no control and which has become nearly laughable. If he thinks of the Countess at all, it is simply as the most plaintive and poignant of a line of ghosts.

"You know Serena's going to carry off the first prize."

It's Bass, looking florid and over-dressed for the late summer heat.

"I imagine so," Dan says stiffly.

Rumors have been flying about Chuck Bass as of late, even more so than usual, particularly concerning what appears to be his fast-depleting wealth. They say his investments are going bad, though his response to the whispered accusations is just to spend more, even lavishing a cruise to the West Indies on his mistress and a diamond necklace on his long-suffering wife.

As he always does, Dan ceases to listen almost as soon as Bass begins to speak, so he's caught off guard when he hears, "As I said to the Countess Grimaldi –"

"The Countess?" Dan repeats. His gaze is straight ahead and his expression truly blank. "Have you spoken to her recently?"

"Why, yes, old man," Bass says, giving him an odd but still somehow smug look. "She's in town, you know – didn't Serena say? She's refused all invitations, however, always such a capricious creature… She hasn't even agreed to stay with the great lady herself, instead bunking with the Buckleys of all people. I didn't even think she cared for the Buckleys."

Dan's heart seems to be beating out of time in his chest. It is a sensation he can only attribute to one other time in his life: his wedding, watching a woman not his wife step regretfully towards the altar. He has heard her name since they had last seen each other, but this is different; a door seems to slam between himself and the outside world, conjuring a vision of the fire-lit drawing room and the sound of carriage wheels on the deserted street.

He had walked by the little house just once in the last year and a half, on his way to renewing his acquaintance with the Abrams sisters, but it had looked lifeless, jilted. It had been the house of a ghost.

Perhaps it is her unexpected proximity that has made her real again to him. He heard that she spend the summer of his honeymoon in Newport being as sociable as the old Blair Waldorf, but she was gone again by wintertime. So she had ceased to be flesh and blood in his mind, and he was able to treat news of her with detachment.

Now, however…

He breaks off from Bass, going down off the verandah and closer to the arranged chairs so he can watch Serena take aim. Her brow has furrowed, her lips flattened into a thin line – and there is her arrow hitting the exact center, followed by polite cheers and applause.

She beams at the assorted guests but her gaze seeks Dan out immediately, grin seeming to widen when faced with his congratulatory smile.

Behind him, Dan hears Bass speak again, a faint remark to Captain Archibald. "Isn't there something," Bass says, "about that level of perfection?"

Dan frowns to himself but chooses not to speak, instead striding over to meet Serena.

After her victory has been commended by all present, Serena and Dan go off to visit Mrs. Celia Rhodes and tell her of their afternoon. The great lady, as is her wont, set up many years ago in an unfashionable-if-cheap stretch of land overlooking the bay, putting those saved pennies into the sprawling, magnificent house in which she only uses two rooms, too weak to do more than go from bedroom to sitting room.

Since the wedding, she has only seemed to grow fonder of Dan, seeming to consider them conspirators in the plan to get Serena married off. There is a little twinkle in her eye as she appraises them both before turning to examine the prize Serena gladly shows off: a little diamante arrow pinned to the collar of her dress.

"Quite an heirloom, in fact, my dear," Mrs. Rhodes says with a small, superior smile. "You must leave it to your eldest girl."

Serena laughs. "Granny, don't give the thing away before I've gotten to enjoy it!"

"I must give these little hints if I am to see grandchildren before I'm in the ground," the old lady says baldly. "Now tell me all about the party, please, my dears. I tried to get Blair to go and be my eyes but she was quite insistent upon spending the day with me, and doting on her dear granny, the flatterer." It's said fondly, and she adds with more humor, "Who was I to deny her? I gave up arguing with young people fifty years ago."

Serena had straightened. "Blair? I thought she had already left for Washington?"

"No, not so; it seems the Buckleys were better company than any of us could have supposed." Then, with sudden shrillness, "Blair! _Blair_!"

Dan sits very still with his cup in his hand, but the only one to answer is an old servant who informs them that Blair had gone down to the shore shortly before their arrival. At that, Mrs. Rhodes waves a hand at Dan and tells him, "Run down and fetch her, like a good grandson; this pretty lady will describe the party to me."

The path to the shore cut through a bank of weeping willows, their drooping branches a picturesque obstruction to the view that exists just beyond them. All he can see through the veil of melancholy green is threads of blue sky, a patch of white that could be clouds or lighthouse, a dazzling spray of sunlight. The sun is only just beginning to descend and when Dan emerges from the trees, he is treated to a melting orange sky shot through with pink and water glittering with the last gasp of the day.

The path continues down to a wooden pier. At the very end there is the figure of a lady, her back to him as she rests her arms upon the rail. Dan stops suddenly, still some distance away, and has the strangest sensation that he is in a dream, or perhaps just waking from one.

She seems to observe the sailboats drifting back and forth in the water, and Dan observes her observing them. He wants very suddenly for her to turn around and look at him, though he knows it's both a ridiculous and childish desire. She could have no knowledge of him standing there, no reason to pull her eyes from the sight that has them captured. Yet still he thinks – if she doesn't turn before that little boat passes the lighthouse, he'll go back.

The boat glides along, dark against the setting sun, and then passes right on by; but still he waits, for what reason he could not say, until the boat is out of view. She does not move.

He turns and walks back up to the house.

As they drive back to the van der Woodsens' home in the growing twilight, Serena remarks, "I'm sorry you didn't find Blair. I should liked to have seen her, though I suppose she must have done it on purpose."

"Done what?" Dan asks, tilting slightly in her direction but keeping his eyes on the reins in her hands.

"Kept herself out of sight," Serena says. "I think she is a little sore with me, though over what I'm not sure; we've only exchanged letters these last months. I haven't set eyes on her since the wedding." She sighs a little. "I think she is much changed."

"Changed?"

"She wanted so badly to be at home again, but now she hardly seems to care – she's indifferent to her friends, she gave up her house in New York… And travelling with the Buckleys of all people, when she's always disliked Bree. I can only think it's something I must have done."

Dan is silent in the wake of that release of worry but eventually he puts his hand on hers. "I'm certain it's nothing you did. Perhaps she is only restless."

"Perhaps," Serena echoes, but she appears unconvinced.

That night he lays awake. He has gotten the notion into his head that reality has somehow flipped – that he has been the ghost all along, passing through a dream-world, and the scene down by the shore is what's real, real as the blood in his veins.

 

 

 

 

The following day, Serena and her family go out for a garden party at the Beatons' but Dan stays behind, ostensibly to go look at a horse for the brand-new brougham Serena's parents had bought for them. Serena teases him that he only refuses to go because he finds the Beatons pompous and son Marcus dull as dishwater, a claim Dan can do little do dispute despite the fact that it did not actually factor much into his plans for the day.

"Perhaps if your errand goes quickly, you might find time to write," Serena offers optimistically before she goes. "I know you had hoped to do so this summer."

He appreciates her encouragement but at the same time only feels a low, burning guilt.

The task with the horse does go quickly enough, Dan finding the animal almost immediately not what he wants, and then he is free to satisfy his silly curiosity. It had come to him at some point during the night as he lay sleepless, a foolish but nevertheless encompassing longing that sends him on his way to the Buckley homestead.

It isn't that he wants to see the Countess. He's certain she took the excuse of the party to go visit again with her grandmother, or call on any number of old acquaintances; it's only that he has the irrational desire to go see the place where she is living. He doesn't know why. It's all a jumble in his head. He has not thought past this outing at all, he only feels that if he could go and look and picture her there, then carry away the vision of the spot of earth she walked on, and the way the sky enclosed it, the rest of the world might seem less empty.

The house is stately, no showy spectacular like the Basses' or even Mrs. Rhodes', and it's quiet in the midday heat. A dog lays sleepily on the verandah, stretching out its paws for Dan's attention as he goes by. There is no one around, no sound coming from inside the house, and after a long contemplative moment Dan goes back down the steps to cross the lawn and enter a small gazebo at the far end of the garden edging the property.

A parasol lay across the bench, a bright, distinct summer sky blue against the wood. It seems to draw him like a magnet; he's sure it's hers. He lifts it up, feeling silk against his palm and then the sun-warmed carved handle, and just stands for a moment holding it like a fool before he hears a rustle of skirts.

He turns to find a young girl, possibly Jenny's age, surveying him with open curiosity. Her hair is mussed though she brings a hand up to smooth it down. After a beat her expression clears and she laughs, "Oh, Mr. Humphrey – I didn't hear you come, I was asleep in the hammock. Everyone else has gone. Did you ring? Oh!" She reaches over to curl a hand around the parasol. "You found it! My very best parasol. I thought I'd left it when we last went to Newport."

Dan looks down with confusion as she takes it off him, finding some excuse to give her as to his presence: "Ah. I came to see about a horse not too far away, so I drove over after on a chance of finding your visitor. But the house seemed empty."

"Indeed it is," the girl agrees with a nod. "Father and Mother and the others all went to the garden party at the Beatons' – didn't you know that was going on? – and Countess was called away, so it's only me. And Bailey." She points back at the dog.

"Called away?"

The girl nods as she inspects her parasol for any signs of potential damage. "Yes, she got a telegram from Boston and said she had to go away for a few days." Her head tilts dreamily. "I do _love_ the way she does her hair, don't you?"

She goes rambling on as Dan's thoughts wheel forcefully away, the entire miserable summer seeming to crash over him all at once: Serena's parents who look down on him and pay for everything, for whom he will never be good enough, just a man who lucked out because their daughter had dangerous secrets; the conspiratorial smirk of Serena's grandmother, who helped him seal his fate; his wife who finds it impossible to care for the things he cares for, and who, with each attempt to do so anyway, only seems to solidify his wretched guilt.

And the Countess who is not here, but once again far away from him.

He hesitates but then plunges forward, "You don't know, I suppose – you see, I will be in Boston tomorrow, and if perhaps you _did_ know –"

The Buckley girl gives him the name of the Countess' hotel, says how lovely it was of him to drop by and how thoughtful of him to visit the Countess, how much she would like that.

"Yes," Dan says, "I do hope she does."


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He feels that there is a distance between them that cannot be crossed; they can merely shout words across the breadth of it and never get any closer.

Boston is overheated in the dull way of true summer, with even the air breathlessly uncomfortable as it drags through the lungs, and the streets are empty except for the disgruntled few who couldn't afford to leave the city for the season. It is not the sort of place he can easily imagine Blair, but then again it's been so long since he's had call to imagine her anywhere.

Despite all this, there is an energetic quickness to Dan's step that he cannot deny or dispel.

Today is to be another stolen day. He could hardly begrudge himself a single day; he had been intending to return to New York early anyway, so the detour to Boston will hardly be missed in his schedule. No one need know. It is as though the day does not exist at all, a void in the calendar, a skip in time that Dan has neatly slid through. He can almost convince himself of all this ¬– almost.

The lying came with such ease that it startled Dan, and the rationalizations followed quick on its heels. He is ashamed of that, and yet what offends his sensibilities more is that he is not _more_ ashamed. His desire to be here outweighs his morality and, for better or worse, he has come to understand the mindset of all those terrible husbands who sneak away from their ignorant wives.

The Buckley girl had told Dan that Blair was staying at the Parker House, so Dan goes there directly – only to be informed that Blair is out. He stands there a minute at the front desk before declining to leave a note and departing disheartened. He decides to take a walk through the Common. If nothing else, it will give him some time to gather himself before choosing his next move.

However, the decision is taken quite out of his hands as he spots Blair almost immediately upon entering the park.

It seems too perfectly picturesque a coincidence to be true. After all this time, nearly two years of absence and purposeful forgetting, here she is, sitting on a bench and reading a book. He could laugh at how stupid and simple it is.

He only wants to look at her for a moment. He sees her in profile, her face bent towards the book, shadowed by the gray silk sunshade she holds aloft in one gloved hand. Curls of glossy brown hair fall around her face, the rest of it haphazardly pinned at the base of her neck. Her dress is not quite as pristinely pressed as usual. Her expression is blank if a little joyless, and the image of her altogether is one of distinct lethargy. She is not quite the same.

He is caught. He doesn't know how to approach her, but he can't continue to just stand here. So he makes his throat work, makes his lips shape her name for the first time in such a long time, twist it up into a question: "Blair?"

Perhaps it is the use of her given name that startles her, though Dan likes to imagine the sound of his voice specifically has some effect. She doesn't stand but her back gets very straight, like a ruler. "Dan," she says.

"I'm –" He doesn't know what he is. He thinks he should have called her Countess Grimaldi instead. "I'm – I'm here on business. What a shock to stumble upon you, especially when we missed one another at Newport."

Her expression clears a little then, and she moves so he might sit beside her. "Yes, indeed." Once he's seated, she adds, "I'm here on business too. Only for two days, and without dear Dorota, so you'll have to excuse my appearance."

He sees her slightly mussed hair and well-worn dress in a new light, but decides he likes the look of it on her, finding a certain lushness in her disarray. There is also her voice, which had not remained in his memory even a little, not a note of it – a voice to which cruelty is as familiar as wit, with an almost singsong quality that he now recalls can lend itself to shrillness or cloying. He is so overwhelmed by her voice that there is a stagnant, horrible pause before he realizes he must speak. "Without your maid? How unconventional." Then, even more belatedly and much too softly, "I noticed your hair was different."

Her hand rises to touch it self-consciously. "I've come here to do something even more unconventional: refuse money that belongs to me."

His brow furrows. "Someone came here with an offer? And you refused?"

She nods.

"Because of the conditions?"

Blair's lips part but it is a moment before she says, "I refused."

"What were the conditions?"

She waves a hand, her gaze breaking from his for the first time since he said her name. "They weren't onerous; just to sit at the head of his table now and then."

Dan takes off his hat and fiddles with it in his hands before putting it back on. "He wants you back at any price?"

Blair makes a small, amused sound. "At a considerable price. At least it is considerable for me."

"Is he here now?"

She looks at him again and actually does laugh. "My husband? Oh, no; he's at Cowes this time of year. He merely sent someone."

"With a letter?"

"Just a message. I think he's only bothered to write once since I've returned." The curl of her lips becomes smaller and sadder, perhaps wistful. "He used to be a great writer of love letters, you know. Only after we were married I found out he never wrote them himself. Why write yourself when you've got secretaries to do it for you?"

Dan flushes just a little at his ears and the back of his neck. She had fled with a secretary. "And this – this emissary?"

"Might, for all I care, have left already, though he insisted on waiting until the evening on the chance…" She only gives a little shake of the head.

On the chance she changes her mind, Dan thinks. This unspoken statement ringing in both their ears, they fall silent, staring not at each other but straight ahead at the people passing by. He feels that there is a distance between them that cannot be crossed; they can merely shout words across the breadth of it and never get any closer.

Finally, Blair murmurs, "You're not changed."

Just as quietly, Dan replies, "I was, till I saw you again."

In his peripheral vision, he sees the slight contraction of her hand where it rests on her lap. "Am I changed?"

"Yes," he says. "Every time I see you, I find you greatly changed."

"Humphrey," she breathes. There's a warning in it. He had only answered a question she had asked.

"Let's go out on the bay, shall we?" he says suddenly, spontaneously. "It's so terribly hot. It'll be cooler out on the bay; there'll be a breeze. There's a steamboat that goes to Point Arley. We could –" He breaks off as his babbling catches up to him. But then, because he cannot help himself, "Haven't we done all we could?"

The effect these words have on Blair is instantaneous. "You mustn't say things like that to me."

His lips press together to keep himself from doing just that. Eventually he offers, "I'll say anything you like. Or nothing. I won't speak unless you tell me to. All I want is to listen to you."

To her voice which can be gently cruel and cruelly gentle.

Blair doesn't reply immediately, so Dan presses, "Just give me the day. You can get away from that man waiting for you."

She gives him a look equal parts quizzical and calculating. "You needn't be afraid. If I don't come."

He holds her gaze steadily. "Nor you either, if you do. I only want to talk, as we used to sometimes. It's been a hundred years since we met – it may be another hundred before we meet again."

Blair studies him, weighing his truth. "Why didn't you come down to get me the day you and Serena came to Granny's?"

Abashed, he glances away and back again. "I played a little game with myself. I saw you standing there at the pier and said to myself that I'd only come down if you turned before a sailboat crossed the lighthouse. But you didn't turn."

Blair's eyes are large and liquid. "But I didn't turn on purpose."

"Oh?"

"I went down to the beach to avoid you," she says. "To get as far away from you as I could."

Dan swallows. "I have no business in Boston. I only wanted to see you."

Softly, Blair says, "I know."

"We'll miss our boat if we linger here much longer," he says lightly, watches her waver one final time before giving in.

They go back to the hotel first so Blair can leave a note for the emissary while Dan secures a carriage to take them to the wharf. He had offered to take the note in for her, but Blair declined with a shake of the head, disappearing quickly through the doors and into the lobby. He waits for her restlessly, unable to bear even these few wasted minutes. His gaze is focused on the doors, each person who comes and goes, and he's a little startled when a familiar face appears quite unexpectedly. There's no time to dwell on it – Blair returns moments later and they hurry on to their destination – but the name comes to him unbidden: Carter Baizen had exited the hotel. How queer.

They arrive just in time to board the half-empty boat, and they both laugh a little like it's such a lucky thing. They move towards the bow, where Blair leans forward against the railing, into the cool breeze coming off the water. She has wound a veil around her hat but left her face bare, and Dan is unable to resist examining her a little in the bright summer light. He has never seen her in the summer before, instead attaching her always to lonely New York winters just beginning to encroach on sepia-toned autumns. Summer seems a stifling season for Blair with her pale face and sturdy gown, unlike Serena who blossoms like a flower at the first touch of sun.

He doesn't speak for fear of disturbing the delicate balance of her trust in him. He has no wish to betray that trust but knows all the wrong words are waiting at his lips to be spoken. There have been days and nights when the memory of their kiss has burned through him, or just the thought of her made his blood careen through his veins; still other days when he made himself blank and empty, if only to prevent her memory from filling him. But these are not the sorts of things he's supposed to say.

A strong gust of wind blows her veil back, a long ivory ribbon caught in the air. The only thing preventing it from flying away entirely is the end curled around her neck. Blair fusses with it as she tries to right it, only managing to tangle it further; with an immediacy borne from lack of thought, Dan reaches over to straighten it for her, smoothing the fabric and laying it correctly so it frames her face as it did before. She smiles her thanks but something in her eyes is very sad.

When they get off at Point Arley, they stop by the dining-room of an inn for a quiet talk disguised as an early lunch. Dan requests a private room, which opens prettily onto the verandah, the water a faint lullaby in the background. They sit across from one another, that illimitable distance widening between them once again, and begin a conversation that is more stops than starts. He doesn't offer much of himself, instead listening to Blair describe the last year and a half of her life.

She had grown tired of society; that much Serena had already told him. Blair became exhausted of trying and failing to fit into a New York that had become strange instead of welcoming – where the only steps she made were the wrong ones, if only because it was she who had made them. That was why she'd gone to Washington. It was a change of pace, at least.

"I never knew this side of New York," she admits. "Or, rather, I had known – known and not cared, because I had never experienced any of it. It was ignorant of me. It appears I don't have the patience or the strength to withstand it."

"I'm sure that isn't true," Dan says quietly. "It can be difficult, impossibly difficult, to find yourself on the outside looking in. Maybe worse for you. You had been inside before."

"You understand so well," she says with appreciation.

He smiles slightly, somewhat humorlessly. "It's what you used to dislike most about me," he remarks.

She bristles. "I was different then." Choosing her words with apparent care, she continues, "Once you said I didn't like you – and by that you meant all of you, all of our family. But I think it's you who doesn't like them. Because you aren't one of them, not really, not even now."

"No?" Dan says. "I bought all my clothes in London. I live in a well-appointed townhouse. I work for an important law firm, my children will all be Rhodes… It would stand that I have made myself a part of things."

"No," Blair affirms. "You know as well as I that no matter what you do, you're still Dan Humphrey from Brooklyn."

She doesn't say it cruelly, just very gently, but the effect is much the same.

"If we have no ability to escape our pasts, then why don't you go back to your husband?" he says. He isn't angry. It's only frustration. The frustration of being so near her and so far from her at once, the frustration at how she understands and yet does not – it's unbearable.

Blair levels him with a genuinely unreadable look. "I believe it's because of you."

The confession is made as dispassionately as a passing comment on the weather.

"I want to be perfectly honest with you," she goes on, in a much firmer tone, "and with myself. I want to explain. I'm not sure you understand just how much you've helped me, what you've made of me – I don't know how to explain myself, but it seems I never understood before how even the most exquisite pleasures hid such baseness – how there is so much sensitivity and compassion in someone like you –"

"Someone like me," he muses, interrupting her. "What could someone like me have made of someone like you? And what of what you've done to me? For I'm of your making much more than you ever were of mine."

Her cheek had paled before under his spiteful questioning, but now a flush rises to its surface. "Of my making?"

"Oh yes," Dan says. "I'm the man who married one woman because another one told him to."

Displeasure reveals itself in the downturned curve of her mouth. "I thought you promised not to say such things to me today."

"Then I suppose I made a promise I could not keep."

"Like all men, then," Blair says testily. "Like your promises to Serena, your vows to her."

His chair scrapes across wood as he rises, moving to the railing of the verandah, dry and warm beneath his hands. He murmurs, unable to suppress his bitterness, "We must always think of Serena."

Blair still sits, but her hands are on the arms of the chair as though she wants to push off them to standing. "Mustn't we?"

He turns back to face her. "What's the use? You gave me a glimpse of a real life, and at the same moment asked me to go on with a sham one. It's beyond enduring – that's all."

"Don't say that," Blair reprimands, "When I'm enduring it!"

Her eyes are shining in the slanting afternoon light, and they are anything but dispassionate now. Anger had brightened her countenance, brought life into her face, and now anguish has made her acutely beautiful. Her face has become a book open for his perusal with pages as familiar to him as any he had penned himself. It overwhelms him, douses the fire of his own vexation, and leaves him suddenly stranded.

"You too," he says, a realization he had somehow missed, seeing only his own pain. "All this time, you too?"

Blair blinks tears from her eyes. "I never took you for a stupid man, Humphrey – even when my opinion of you was not so high."

Dan takes his seat again and sees her relax minutely, the tension dissipating from her limbs. One of her slim white hands, ringed as always, rests on that impossible distance between them and he reaches out to cover it with his own. She turns her palm to his, her fingertips just curling round his wrist. He feels much closer to her and simultaneously all the farther.

"You won't go back?"

Blair sighs and takes her hand away. "I won't. Not as long as you hold out." She raises her gaze to his. "I have been where she would be. I know this pain. I choose now not to inflict it."

"And that's all there is to be?" Dan asks. He already knows the answer but cannot help the small, stupid, desperate part of him that wants a different one. "For either of us?"

"Well; it _is_ all, isn't it?" As though to soothe the sting, she touches his hand lightly one more time. "Don't be unhappy."

 _I cannot promise it_ , he thinks, though he keeps the words at bay. He knows their time in this little shuttered room is over; the day he asked for has passed. There is nothing more he can do except leave their future in her care, asking only that she keep fast hold of it.

He wants to kiss her but knows it to be impossible. Her decision is clear: she will stay near him as long as he never asks her to come nearer. She will let him be untrue to his wife in his heart as long as he isn't in any other way – because he has won Blair with kindness, and to betray Serena would also be the ultimate betrayal of the man she believes him to be.

Dan does not think himself so kind or good, only selfish.

Yet as they ride the steamboat back to their respective lives and destinies, a kind of tranquility does settle over him. The day had been a failure. The only thing separating now from before are the terms of their detachment; his heartache has found no solace or solution. Nevertheless, he _does_ feel soothed. Blair has found a way to keep them loyal to those they love without their continued lying to themselves or each other, and she has drawn the exact line in the sand that he must honor. There is some comfort in that.

He can be near Blair without having her. Being near her can be enough.

 

 

 

 

August gives way to autumn, which in turn ices over for winter. Serena's family goes to St. Augustine but for the first time she remains behind, bundled up in furs at Dan's side. Dan spends his time at work, taking on the bulk of the responsibilities in Mr. van der Woodsen's absence, or otherwise in his study, eternally catching up on his reading. Even now, he doesn't feel entirely at home in the house purchased and decorated for them by Serena's parents. With the exception of the study, of course – Serena had been charmingly adamant that it remain entirely his. For that he was glad, because the rest of the townhouse bore no mark of him at all.

It has been four months since he last saw Blair. He wrote her once asking when he might see her again, and she replied simply, "Not yet."

Dan has begun to build a little fortress of thoughts and desires: the books he reads, the dreams he cultivates privately, the judgments he makes and prejudices he argues – he brings them all to Blair in his thoughts, composing countless letters he never writes or sends. He knows he has begun to pull too far from the reality of his life, if it could still be called that. Serena looks at him with concern. He rather wishes she _had_ gone on to St. Augustine as usual, if not to save him from her tenderness than to give herself a respite from having to be tender.

Still, she has a few venues in New York that can offer her better amusement than he can. It has become the thing to do to go to Mrs. Ivy Dickens' on Sunday evenings, a trend the older society women bemoan as much they do new fads in fashion. Even Jenny has gone along once or twice with Serena, despite her protestations of the scandal when it was only Blair who went. But in the recent few months, Mrs. Dickens' loud clothes and Sunday soirées are pale gossip when compared to the apparent plight of the Basses – a topic anyone who is anyone seems to relish.

No one really likes Bass, so when trouble descended upon him people were inclined to feel schadenfreude before they felt sympathy. But this had gone beyond French mistresses being sent on expensive vacations: his bad investments appeared to be getting ever worse, and the idea of him bringing financial dishonor on his wife's family was nearly too shocking to be enjoyed.

"I do feel rather bad for poor Charlotte," Penelope says to the assembled dinner party, not sounding particularly sorry. "But what could one really expect, marrying a man like that?"

Dan is even less inclined than the general populace to feel any sympathy in regards to Chuck Bass, but he does find it curious (to say the least) how everyone was willing to turn a blind eye to Bass' exploits when his wealth and his wife's popularity reigned supreme; now that he lacks the appropriate financial backing, the story has changed. But isn't that always the case in this city?

"And do you know what else –"

Penelope continues to hand-deliver the good gossip once everyone has rumbled agreement to her statements about "poor Charlotte," leaning in a little to truly revel in the attention of the table.

"I've heard Carter Baizen is back in New York! It's been absolute eons since he's stepped foot in the States – he was seen escorting his sister Caroline, which must mean the Baizens are seeing fit to restore his inheritance –"

Dan seeks out Serena's reaction immediately, but finds her inattentive, absorbed in conversation with Jenny – though a moment later her gaze darts to Dan's, a vague question in the look. In truth, Dan had already known of Carter's return to the city.

He had seen Carter first over a week ago, exiting the townhouse just before Dan returned there from work. He probably would not have caught Carter at all had he not left a little early that day. He could only assume Carter was there to meet with Serena, and had those suspicions confirmed when she didn't mention the visit once. He would have liked to see her express surprise at Penelope's announcement, just to further compound the secret of it – but that's an unkind wish.

Dan had felt a torrent of uneasy and uncategorized emotions upon seeing another man leaving his home. He knew Serena had something of a past with Carter and, without knowing the specifics, it had been enough to bring a visible change on her when they met Carter on their honeymoon. It could be possible that Dan's emotional distance from her had driven her into the arms of an old lover – it was more than possible, in Dan's mind. And he did not know how to feel about such a possibility.

It would be hypocritical for Dan to feel jealousy, but competing emotions can often be experienced at once with no care for the logic of it. So he did feel jealous, at least a little; she is his wife, after all. There was also a sense of relief that she might find comfort with another, if only because it would be an alleviation of his own guilt. Maybe she had loved Carter all the while, but been unable or unwilling to wed him.

Or it could be none of those things – perhaps Carter had seen Dan in Boston and come to reveal the fact to Dan's wife.

After Penelope's announcement at dinner, Carter's appearance in New York no longer has the air of secrecy about it, so Dan feels able to approach him. He arranges the meeting for the club, where they can speak with a veil of insouciance. Carter sees through this immediately, but deigns to humor Dan anyway.

"Are you here to play knight in shining armor?" he asks between a puff of his cigarette and swallow of his whiskey. "You needn't bother; as I'm sure she told you, it was only family business."

Dan bites his tongue, but his expression must give him away, for Carter raises a slow eyebrow and adds, "Unless she hasn't told you, that is. Well. I suppose you aren't really a part of things – are you?"

Dan frowns. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Amused, Carter gives a careless shrug. "Not a thing, Humphrey. Here, I'll soothe your fears: I went to Serena to speak of her cousin, who I'd seen lately on business."

With keen clarity, Dan recalls Carter leaving the Parker House in Boston. "You were Count Grimaldi's messenger?"

Carter's amusement grows into a small smile. "Was I right in thinking I saw you in Boston, then, Humphrey?"

Dan ignores this. "So you delivered your message; what did you have to say of it to Serena?"

Carter grounds out his cigarette. "I've long been an agent of both sides, so to speak. I do a little work now and then for the Count, have done for years – in between disinheritances, one must take up some position, you understand – and so I was able to offer aid once to the Countess on Serena's behalf. Serena's a good girl and she worried, you know, considering what she suspected the Count to be like – so she asked me to help and I did."

Dan is unable to keep from gaping a little. He had had no inkling that Carter Baizen, of all people, had been in any way involved in the entire situation, let alone that he had been the secretary who helped Blair flee in the first place.

"And I knew Madame Grimaldi's family would not take kindly to her refusal of the Count's offer, so I came by to… Well, to keep Serena abreast of the situation, to see to it Blair had some support for her decision. But of course Serena didn't require my prodding." He glances at Dan. "Whatever I was once, I'm only an old friend now – very old, practically ancient – so you needn't worry I'm after your wife." He seems to consider this. "Well, not after her too much."

It occurs to Dan that this is all information that has been purposefully kept from him. By the family, no doubt – Dan's open disagreement on all topics related to Blair and her husband unsurprisingly excluded him from further discussions, but he hadn't anticipated Serena keeping such things from him.

The only thing Dan can think to say is, "Are you still in the Count's employ?"

"Ah, no," Carter says. "My father has decided he wants a son again, so I can be a shiftless gentleman once more."

"If only we were all so lucky to have occupations so suited to our talents," Dan says. "I'm sorry to have disturbed you. Good evening."

Dan knew Blair was further from her family's good graces than before. Even Mrs. Rhodes had failed to defend her in wake of her final refusal to return to her husband and had cut her allowance drastically. Nate's family, apparently holding an eternal grudge, had taken some pleasure in it:

"Who knows what she's living on now," scoffed Nate's mother, "Shame she didn't get that divorce; at least then she might have remarried richly."

Dan is agitated in the wake of his conversation with Carter, beginning several letters to Blair that he ultimately discards. It isn't just concern for her and how she's living that motivates him; his ugly selfishness is rearing its head once again. Perhaps another afternoon with her will once again clear his mind and settle his conscience.

Over a quiet, private dinner with Serena, he broaches the topic. "I thought," he begins, voice startling in the silence. He clears his throat and starts over, much softer. "I have been giving so much time to my work lately, as you know… It leaves me such little time to get any real writing done. I thought I might take something of a short holiday… Just a day or so." He clears his throat again. "Possibly in Washington."

Serena looks at him over the flicker of candle-flames. "The change will do you good," she says finally. "But you must be sure to go and see Blair." Her attention falls back to her plate. "You know I always want you to have time to write."

Quiet settles over them like the dusting of snow on the ground outside. Once they had shared confessions readily, revealing hidden affection and love and worry the way lovers were supposed to. Some time after their wedding this had stopped and now Dan isn't sure how to relearn the language of it. He remembers her brutal honesty in the orange grove, her determination to be open with him; he wonders why now she keeps secrets about old friends, why she doesn't just _ask_ him if she is curious about his behavior of late.

He wonders why he makes no confessions himself, and says nothing.

 

 

 

 

Chuck Bass was not an honorable man but he did always seem to manage to slink away from any blame laid at his feet for anything, so it is quite a surprise when his failure promises to be one of the most discreditable in the history of Wall Street. Dan's office is abuzz with news of it on Monday morning.

"It'll hit just about everyone we know," Serena's father guarantees darkly. "He had a hand in everyone's business, and kept assuring the lot that everything was up to snuff, going along as planned. Little did they know!"

The bad news only continues to roll in: around mid-afternoon, Mr. van der Woodsen comes to Dan's desk to collect him, waving about a telegram he'd just received from his wife. With an economy of phrasing, it read, _Mother had slight stroke last night. Please come at once_.

They leave work immediately, traveling uptown to find Mrs. Rhodes' house busy with doctors and relatives. Serena is pale and worried but, even with whatever is going on between them, her expression becomes instantly relieved as soon as she sees Dan. She puts her arms around him, neglecting a hello to tell him in a rushed, quiet voice what had gone on in this house the night before.

"Apparently Lola – Charlotte – came to see her late last night," Serena murmurs, tugging Dan further into the room. "The butler said they spoke maybe an hour before Lola left, and Granny went to bed as usual, but in the middle of the night the bell rang and they found her in her room…" Serena is wan but hopeful. "She's already regaining control of her facial muscles, the doctor said. And she was able to tell Mother a bit –"

It seems Charlotte Bass had discovered the extent of her husband's misdeeds then came to beg her grandmother not to desert them in their time of need, seeking support for them both. But Celia refused on grounds of Bass' incredible dishonesty, for financial dishonesty is of course not to be borne under any circumstances. Dan doubts they would be so keen for Blair to return to a husband who was not absurdly wealthy and titled.

"She said to Granny – so it seems, anyway – said her name was Charlotte Rhodes, and didn't that mean anything?"

"And what did Granny say to that?"

"You know how she is," Serena sighs. "That her name had been Bass when he covered her with jewels, and must stay Bass now that he's covered her with shame."

Dan lets out a slow breath. "Ah," he says. "Of course."

It becomes evident that Mrs. Rhodes is bound to recover, as she had from so many other illnesses, resilient as ever. Dan is useless except for the vague support he can offer Serena, which seems to mainly involve holding her hand while she listens, tight-lipped, to her mother go on and on about how Charlotte's duty is to her husband. Though he had been the one to do something disgraceful, it was her obligation as a wife to slink away into the shadows with him.

Dan pities Lola. He had never spent any great amount of time with her, but she had always been cordial to him, and seemingly pleasant in general. Not that it matters; her disposition carries little weight when the issue at hand is that she is another woman trapped in a bad marriage and made to suffer the consequences of it.

Dan knows Lola will never be able to divorce Bass. He regrets anew that he did not help Blair divorce the Count.

Serena's Aunt Carol emerges into the room tiredly, fortunately cutting off Lily's pontifications on the responsibilities of marriage. "She wants me to telegraph Blair," Carol informs the room at large. "We'd written to Blair, of course, but it seems that's not enough. Mother wants her to come immediately."

The announcement is received in silence. Mr. van der Woodsen finally says, as though it is a great burden, "I suppose it must be done."

"Of course it must be done," Serena interjects, a touch sharply. "Blair should rightfully be here, if that's what Granny wishes. Shall I write the telegram? If it goes at once, she can catch the morning train. Dan can take it to the telegraph office – can't you, Dan?"

He straightens and nods. "Yes, of course. Whatever you need done."

Serena nods in satisfaction before moving to the writing desk to dash off a quick note, blotting it and handing it to him. Then she pauses on the verge of speech and wets her lips. "What a pity that you and Blair will likely cross each other on the way." At his confusion, she adds, "As you are bound for Washington, and she bound for home."

Dan opens his mouth and closes it, feeling the weight of her eyes on him. "How could I possibly leave at a time like this?" he says. "It was only a silly pleasure trip. I'll stay – of course I'll stay."

Serena looks at him a moment longer but then nods, accepting that.

He leaves hastily for the telegraph office, confused conscience hanging heavy over every step.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They see one another at almost the same moment, Blair lagging a mere breath behind, and the sharp, vivid recognition in her face seems to stop the progress of Dan's pulse and start it again.

Dan is sent to retrieve Blair from the station.

Two days have passed since he sent the family mandated telegram, and they were two days of increasing indignation amongst the Rhodes, who seemed to feel ever more slighted in the wake of Cece's insistence upon having Blair at her bedside. Dan thought even Serena was a little miffed, for though she was determined to honor her grandmother's wishes, she must have felt snubbed in favor of her cousin.

"Granny thinks she's dying," Serena said bluntly the night before Blair's arrival. She sat at her dressing table, cheek nestled against the ruffles of her ivory dressing gown, and studied her reflection despondently. "That's all it is. She wants her family around her because she suspects it is the end."

"Don't say that," Dan said, gentle, coaxing. "She'll live forever, just watch."

Serena smiled but her eyes were distant and already mournful.

Dan didn't truly think Mrs. Rhodes, formidable as she was frail, was in danger of passing any time soon. She had recovered her fire even if she seemed changed in other ways – noticeably weaker, more sentimental – and she complained at length that everyone was fussing over her much too much, even though privately Dan believed she enjoyed it. Her first act upon improving enough to enact legislation was to ban all talk of Charlotte or her husband, which seemed to leave the family with very little to say.

Gossip of the Bass failure had overshadowed news of Cece's stroke, though no one in wider society thought to connect the two events. There was merely a great deal of speculation as to what the Basses would do or should do, not that anyone thought to ask the couple in question (which Dan suggested snidely at the club one night to resounding silence).

Things being as they were, none of the Rhodes wanted to be responsible for collecting Blair and bringing her home once again – for even if New York could no longer be considered her home, her grandmother's house certainly counted regardless. Serena herself wouldn't leave her grandmother's side, so Dan had offered, expression blank but heart beating hard in his chest. Serena was grateful but also, he could tell, not surprised.

All this passes through his mind as he paces on the train platform, leaving dusty footprints in the falling snow. Night is coming on quickly, though the dense clouds and gleaming snow prevent the darkness from suffocating. The gas-lamps burn hazily around Dan as he moves back and forth between them, light to shadow to light. He glances skyward once, flakes alighting coldly on his face, and finds the obscured sky a deep jewel blue not unlike the stone in Serena's engagement ring. These things feel potent and significant, like omens, but Dan cannot suppress the thin pleasure that has begun to wind through him.

In his thoughts, Dan travels the distance from the station in Jersey City to Cece's uptown estate over and over again. It should take two hours, maybe more in this weather. Two hours or more.

He imagines her arrival, a slender figure stepping from the train and moving along the platform, dressed in a green cloak with her hands tucked in a white muff. The light snowfall would catch in the curls of her hair. From his position, he would be able to see her long before she noticed him, and there is something appealing about the idea, as though she's there just for him: the only person he recognizes in a sea of strangers.

Even still, picturing and anticipating her, he's still startled by the pale oval of her familiar face appearing suddenly in his field of vision. She's clad in black, not green, and the fur at her neck and hands is black-tipped gray. They see one another at almost the same moment, Blair lagging a mere breath behind, and the sharp, vivid recognition in her face seems to stop the progress of Dan's pulse and start it again. When she's close enough to touch, he offers her his arm and she takes it wordlessly. They don't speak until the doors of the brougham have securely closed them in.

Blair asks about Mrs. Rhodes first and Dan goes through the dutiful assurances. "But," he adds, "She refuses to address the cause of it at all, and won't even allow Mrs. Bass' name to be spoken in her presence."

Appearing somewhat amused by this, Blair says, "Ah, that sounds like Granny." She gives Dan a sidelong look. "You'll find me ridiculous, but even I must fight my natural impulses on this score. My very first thought was that she had gotten what was coming to her for marrying a man like Bass, but then I remembered and chided myself for how intolerant I was. I now endeavor to have nothing but the utmost sympathy for Charlotte, even if I always did despair of her taste in hats."

Dan is unprepared for the laugh that escapes him and it catches in his throat, a choking amusement. Blair gives him a spare smile in response and it is all, for a moment, too much: her prickly nearness, her mean spirit, her humor. He would like to kiss her but instead merely takes her gloved hand in his. "You didn't expect me today?"

"No." Her fingers move along his with something akin to reluctance, but she doesn't pull away. "Did you know I hardly remembered you?"

"Hardly remembered?"

Again she gives him that cool, spare smile, brittle as dark-branched winter trees. "Isn't it just the same for you?"

He recalls the bracing shock of seeing her again and how it happens every time he sees her, even when he knows it's coming. "Yes," he allows, turning her hand over in his and opening the little button at the wrist. He tugs the glove over the heel of her hand, bends, and kisses her palm. "I almost came to Washington to see you, you know."

Blair doesn't reply except to gently disentangle her hand from his. "I suppose Serena sent you to fetch me?"

Dan wonders at such veiled remarks and meaningless chatter, as though there were no deeper connection between them now than there was a decade past. Was this to be the rest of his life, all the time pretending, even in private? Everything he had wanted to say to her now seems trite and even embarrassing, and it's with childish, defiant frustration that he tells her, "I saw Carter Baizen in New York."

It's a small, petty retaliation for bringing up the wife neither of them forgot, and Dan feels a little ashamed of saying it as soon as it leaves his mouth. He had not intended to allude to Baizen and his knotty history with both Blair and Dan's wife, but once spoken it cannot be unsaid.

She betrays no reaction. "What did he tell you?"

Being made to elaborate, even though the shift of topic was his doing, only serves to frustrate Dan further. "That he helped you once, as a favor to your cousin."

Blair lifts her unreadable gaze to his. "Yes. It was quite the caper; Carter never pulls off anything without some style, even such a thing as stealing a wife away from her husband. Does the idea worry you?" Her dark eyes seem to challenge: _or is it that it doesn't?_

He presses his lips together and ignores her implication. "He did you a great service."

"Mm, in a manner of speaking," she says, voice going sharp with mocking. "An adventure, a last little bit of revenge against everyone who purported to love me – slipping on Blair Waldorf's skin a final time. Once you told me I was changed every time you saw me, and I was perhaps the most changed then, flush with my escape. I'd never felt such agonizing guilt and joy at once – until now. I never shared it with Serena; I think it might hurt her even now that she's put Carter aside for good." She still has those challenging eyes on his, alight with new passion. "How is it she and I always know the best ways to hurt one another?"

"Blair," he murmurs, but is uncertain how to proceed from there. The carriage jostles as it clambers onto the ferry and Blair allows herself to be carried by the motion until a hand pressed firmly against his chest stops her. Her face is close to his, emotion marring her brow and twisting her lips. "You know this can't last."

"What can't?" she questions petulantly.

"Our being together – and not being together."

Her brow furrows further before she says, "You ought not have come today." And then her mouth is against his, open and fast, gone before he can fully realize the sensation. When she pulls away, she pulls far as she can manage, tucked tight in the opposite corner of the seat.

Dan's mind feels muddy, but that has never stopped his mouth working before, so words come tumbling out regardless. "You needn't fear action from me; I won't touch your hand if you don't want me to. Being with you is enough. It's the waiting that's cruel, biding the time until –"

"Until what?" She shakes her head with a soundless laugh. "You have to accept your reality, Dan. You can't spend all your life looking at visions. I've learned the trouble that comes from doing that."

Stubbornly, Dan says, "I don't know any reality but this."

"I can't be your wife." Her lower lip shines from their kiss but she smothers it with her fingertips, shaking her head once more. "So is it your idea, then, that I should be your mistress?"

The bluntness of the question drives him to silence, feeling shamed for his idealism. Finally he says, "I only want to be with you. I don't want anything else to matter."

Blair's expression intermingles affection with contempt. "And yet everything else is all that does."

He turns away, looking sullenly out the window where the city is passing by at a surprisingly rapid clip. "Then what, exactly, is your plan for us?"

"There is no _us_ in that sense," she says. "I won't try to be happy behind the backs of the people who trust us."

Impatient, Dan counters, "I'm beyond that."

"No, you're not! You've never been beyond. I have," her voice sounds momentarily stifled, "and I know what it looks like there."

It occurs to Dan that he is merely a hand to hold for Blair: a bit of comfort and support in a lonely world. When only one hand is offered to you, what can you do but clutch it? Any time he attempts to clutch back, she retreats; it could simply be that he wants more, yearns for more than she is capable of offering anymore. That is her right, whatever pain it causes him.

Dan feels for the bell that signals the coachman, ringing twice to alert the man to stop. Then he wraps a hand around the door handle.

"This isn't Granny's." Blair peers out the window, frowning. "Why have we stopped?"

"I'm getting out," he says before he does just that, stepping down onto the slushy pavement. He looks up once to see her confused and watching him. "You're right; I ought not to have come today."

Before she can speak, he calls for the driver to go on, moving aside as the brougham starts off once more, carrying her away from him. He stands there until the chill begins to bite through his wool coat, then turns and walks in the opposite direction, towards home.

 

 

 

 

"You didn't come tonight," Serena says.

Though her tone is even and far from accusatory, and there is nothing in her carriage or countenance to suggest such a thing, Dan feels the tender needling of interrogation anyway. They are sitting down to a late dinner together, the room dark except for the pulsing shimmer of candlelight.

"You have my apologies," Dan says. "I thought the excitement over the Countess would more than make up for my absence."

It is hardly even an excuse as far as excuses go, and he offers no alternate explanation for why he had not gone on to Mrs. Rhodes' house to meet his wife and her family. Their family, he should say.

Serena looks at him for a moment over the tabletop cluttered with silver candlestick holders and wedding gift china, the cooling food on silver platters. She holds a knife and fork in either hand but they don't touch her meal, and her fingers grip the decorated metal tightly. Her jaw is set, mouth downturned; she looks years older like this, pale and wan. For the length of that unhappy moment, panic and hope war in Dan's chest and he's suddenly, terribly certain that she is finally going to address his wandering heart.

Then she says, "It was good to see Blair again," and drops her gaze to her plate. And that is that.

Dan retreats to the library after dinner. The cool silence of the room is his only escape in the entire luxurious madhouse, the only place where the sensation of asphyxiation abates. But tonight he is gifted no such freedom, for after a little while Serena comes in to join him. She sits a few feet off to practice her sewing, though she has little patience or skill for it; she keeps pricking her fingers with exaggerated little huffs of annoyance. It's terribly endearing, and all the worse for it. The closer she is to him, the more acute Dan's pain.

Usually when she pierces the solitude of the library, it's to ask him to read aloud to her as he used to when they were first courting. Tonight she doesn't. It is a mild surprise in a life with so few of them left, each moment following a script full of such trite sentimental nonsense that it might be one of Dan's father's silly musicals. Dan fears he is becoming his father at times, distant and always yearning for the fantasy of a life that doesn't exist; and sitting there with her golden hair in its low knot, her pinched expression, Serena resembles no one so much as her own mother. Soon enough they will produce children in their own images, tiny little versions of themselves made duller by the repetition, as they are dull copies of their own parents. On and on it will go until everyone they know is dust, and no one living will even be aware of their own tedious history.

The ability to breathe deserts Dan entirely just then and he finds himself on his feet, crossing to the window and throwing it open before plunging his head and shoulders out into the icy night. He gulps the freezing air as though it were water.

He can hear Serena in the room. He can hear the abrupt way she stands up, startled, her skirts swishing. "Dan?"

He doesn't answer.

"Dan," she says. "You'll catch your death!"

How satisfying it might be to catch! On occasion he thinks it has already caught him, and the ghostly drifting he does now is just a miraculously disappointing afterlife.

Then he thinks, fleeting and cruel – what if Death caught _her_? He looks out over the dark rooftops, winter wind biting at his cheeks and throat, and detaches utterly from the room and the woman in it. Serena could die. People did. Young, healthy people like herself: she might die, and then Dan wouldn't be anyone's husband.

Dan turns back into the room, open window at his back. His gaze alights on Serena standing there uncertainly, her brows arranged in the very picture of worry. Bile rises in his throat and he loathes himself with such intensity in that moment that he does wish he was truly dead. "Poor Serena," he says, strained, and means it. "I shall never be able to open a window without worrying you."

She softens a little, looking back at him. "I shall never worry if you're happy."

At that, he must turn away from her, if only to close the window. "If you'll forgive me, I think I'll go to bed. I'm not feeling so well."

Quietly, she answers, "Alright."

He makes sure to kiss her cheek as he passes her, but a chill passes between them at the touch, a marriage contaminated by the cold.

 

 

 

 

The days pass until an entire week is swallowed up, spent mostly on following the dialogue cues and stage directions of Dan's predetermined life. He wiles away hours sitting behind his desk at the job he hates, ignoring his stack of paperwork in favor of scratching out depressing little scenes in his unpublished novel. He neglects visiting the club with Nate, happily using Mrs. Rhodes' continuing health concerns as an excuse; indeed, he does spend much of his time with Serena at her grandmother's, each by turn entertaining the bedridden old woman.

Blair has developed a remarkable talent for being out every time Dan calls, and he does not inquire about her if he can help it. Today is no different. Dan has been invited specifically by Mrs. Rhodes, sans Serena, and arrives to find the visiting Countess absent again. This time she is on a charitable mission to see poor cousin Charlotte.

"Truly?" Dan is somewhat taken aback. "I wasn't aware Madame Grimaldi had much use for charity."

Cece's eyes sparkle with affectionate meanness. "Nor I, but the blame for today's excursion can be laid at the feet of your lovely wife, my Serena. Or didn't you know?"

"Serena?" he repeats, as though it is a foreign tongue. "Serena went along to see Mrs. Bass?"

"Darling Serena orchestrated the entire affair! She thinks I'm being an obstinate old lady about Charlotte and has enlisted Blair in her little revolutionary acts of sympathy." Watching him intently, Mrs. Rhodes adds, "One would think you and your wife didn't live under the same roof, Mr. Humphrey. Don't you talk at breakfast?"

The honest answer would give her too much pleasure, so Dan cracks a wry smile instead. "You must forgive your absentminded grandson-in-law just as Serena must forgive her absentminded husband. I merely forgot."

"Hm," Cece murmurs, still watching him with visible deliberation. "I think your mind is not as absent as you would like me to believe, but it's no matter – it isn't family without some intrigue, is it, Daniel?"

"So I've learned in my stint as a Rhodes," he answers jokingly, and she laughs.

"Blair was never a generous girl," Cece says. "Serena too much – to a fault. Yet time has been kinder to her than her cousin, so perhaps she had the right idea all along!"

 _Has it been?_ Dan wonders idly. Each girl had found her way into a singularly unhappy marriage, though circumstances varied wildly. "Serena is the most tenderhearted girl I've ever met," he says, which has the decency of not being a lie. "If she were any other way, she wouldn't be Serena."

Cece acknowledges this with a nod, but goes on to say, "As much as it may amuse me to be overruled, I'm not sure I approve of this whole business with Charlotte. I suppose they wouldn't be my girls if they didn't disobey me, but for everyone to get the idea that I might _condone_ Charlotte's behavior –" She makes a tsking noise, shaking her head.

"What behavior is that?" Dan asks daringly. "Remaining by the side of a detestable husband as she's been told to do, or not putting on a happier mask to do it?"

The old woman laughs again, a distinct witchiness to it that borders on cackling. "Ah, my dear Daniel. It's no wonder Serena insisted upon you as a husband. Her mother thought her a fool, but she chose better than any of my other granddaughters, that's for certain. Imagine Charlotte or Blair had her luck!"

Dan averts his gaze, feeling shamed by such unwarranted praise. Mrs. Rhodes must think him humble, and the thought is all the more shaming.

"Since you are so ignorant of news, I'll tell you something else," she says. Dan is grateful for the change of topic. "I have demanded Blair remain here with me, and she's agreed, finally. I need some youth and vitality about the place, and soon enough my Serena will be too busy with your little ones to have the time – don't blush, young man! If I don't have at least one great-grandchild before I'm in the ground, I shall haunt you for all eternity. So instead I shall have Blair, though the family is against it, of course. But who am I to listen to them, when it's I who holds the purse strings? I'll have her here so long as she has a granny to nurse, and I've reinstated her allowance besides. That's why I've asked you here, really."

Dan blinks, stirring. "Me?"

Emotions are warring within him. There is relief for Blair's sake but also a deep, painful curiosity: could this mean, perhaps, that she has chosen to meet him halfway?

"You have been her supporter from the outset," Mrs. Rhodes says. "And if I'm to fight with my family about it again, I'll need your backing once more – yours and your wife's. For all the work their mothers did to put them at each other's throats, those girls have found a way to one another all the same. I've always liked courage above everything, and they've all got it – though of course courage and foolishness are often wed. And you, my boy, you work at the law office, so you can tackle it from that angle for me. Work on old William."

"Yes." Dan's thoughts have already fled, traveled on ahead to the resultant possibilities of Blair's remaining in New York. "You know I'll do whatever I can, whatever."

Despite the cold and the distance, Dan chooses to walk home so as better to collect his thoughts. He cannot deny that Blair's decision to remain in New York confounds him. She had been so definite in keeping the barrier between them insurmountable that he had been anticipating her flight even amidst her arrival. In the carriage she had kissed him in one breath and told him there was to be nothing between them in the next. He didn't think Blair coquettish, so perhaps she is merely as tormented as he. She did not want to hurt Serena, this he knew, but he had the feeling the wound had already been inflicted.

What now? he wonders. Will they fall prey to Blair's fears, and become the type of people who try to be happy behind the backs of those that trust them? Dan has always found cheating abhorrent, and while his affair with Rachel Carr hadn't progressed to the altar, he at least had the comfort of not having double-crossed anyone – unlike Nate, who had had a love affair with a married duchess prior to Penelope, not to mention his actions with Dan's own future wife. It was the betrayal that kept Dan passive and prevented him from acting on his inclinations.

Now hypocrisy has become a daily routine. For all Dan's moral objections, a part of him feels his and Blair's case is exceptional. They are individuals caught up in individual circumstances, and surely not all rules are made to fit every occasion.

A twisting in Dan's stomach belies his rationalizations. He has become nothing more or less than a liar – it's a lie by day, a lie by night, a lie in every touch and every look; a lie in every caress and every quarrel; a lie in every word and every silence.

To reach his own home, he must first pass by the Basses'. The condition of the large, stately house has been greatly changed since the scandal; where there was always light and music and company, people spilling out onto the street any given night, now there is only stillness and quiet. The windows are unlit, like a building left abandoned. Outside stands a gleaming navy carriage. Serena's.

Inside that house, Serena once stole a kiss from Dan that made him blush. How innocent they were then, how untouched.

The doors open, a shaft of yellow light spilling onto the gray pavement. Dan's steps falter and he finds himself hanging back far enough to remain out of sight. Shadows cross the yellow square first: two women, one very tall, with full skirts. Then Serena emerges, still tying a hat over her tousled golden hair, and laughing a little – beautiful Serena as carefree in that one moment as she hasn't been in years, utterly unaware of Dan's eyes upon her. Blair follows a moment later, and is as always more reserved.

He studies them a moment, the tender way they clasp hands to say goodbye and the uncomfortable way they hold themselves apart. There is never less than a foot of space between them and they don't embrace or even climb into the carriage together. Blair hands Serena up and then moves back along the sidewalk as though borne away by her own unease. She watches Serena's carriage clatter off and adjusts her cloak before she turns to walk back to her grandmother's. Her gaze catches Dan's immediately and they both go still, startled. It is a surprise every time, even when it isn't.

Blair unawares is always a little sweet to Dan; for a woman who builds around herself such an impenetrable fortress, it is certainly something to get a glimpse behind her walls, even for a moment. "Dan," she says, familiar and full of feeling.

"I must see you," Dan breaks out, without salutations or introductions. "Tomorrow. Somewhere we can be alone."

She smiles just a little and walks towards him slowly in the misty evening. "In New York?"

Dan casts about for somewhere, anywhere, with a hint of privacy. He thinks of his old home in Brooklyn, where no one ever thought to look, and his father's theatres, and then finally – "The Art Museum in the Park. If you'll meet me."

She is at his shoulder now, near parallel to him, and she doesn't seem to have any plan to cease her steady pace. But she does nod near-imperceptibly before continuing on her way, down along the dark street. Dan looks over his shoulder to watch her, fearless as the heroine of some novella, protected for some greater narrative purpose and therefore having no need of apprehension.

But then she's had no fear since her return, has she? She has seen greater darkness than this.

 

 

 

 

Despite having been open to the public for several years now, the Metropolitan Museum of Art remains relatively untrafficked – or at least it's so on this clouded-over, colorless day, the day that luck has led Dan to choose. Who else would be venturing out on such a dreary afternoon but two secretive would-be lovers?

Blair is waiting on the steps when Dan arrives, looking not unlike a piece of art herself, the ruffled cascade of her muted pink skirts like little brush strokes. Their eyes meet for a long moment, her above and him below, and then she turns to go inside without bothering to wait. Dan understands the subterfuge, even with no one else around to be privy to it.

He finds Blair again amongst antiquities, an oddly cheerful figure in her pink and white against the browning deterioration around them. Her expression is shuttered until she glances his way and it suddenly lifts, gaze so warm and clear it's nearly unspeakably intimate. "I've never been here before."

"It will be a great museum one day, I'll wager."

Blair half-nods, uninterested, and continues making her way across the room. She takes in each ancient scrap of pottery and labeled tool until she stops and gently touches her fingertips to the glass in front of a pair of torturous-looking earrings. "It's cruel to think that after a while nothing matters," she muses. "How important all these things were to someone once. I take such pleasure in things. In a hundred years, some little lady might be pressing her face in at one of my hat-pins, or a comb, some silly little bauble I thought necessary enough to own, rendered useless by time."

"Do you think it's the same with people?" Dan wonders. He sinks onto one of the benches. "With affection?"

Her attention returns to him, this time more assessing. He had brought her a handful of violets today because he couldn't find roses and now she snaps one off its stem so she can tuck it into his pocket, its little purple face peeping out. "Perhaps. But I imagine it takes longer."

Blair sets the flowers aside as she joins him. Somewhere else in the museum, there is the distant sound of scuffling footsteps, reminding them that even this privacy is merely an illusion, another game of pretend.

"I spoke with your grandmother," Dan says finally. "She told me you've decided to stay."

"Yes," Blair replies. "It's what you want, isn't it?"

"What I want?" He stares at her, uncomprehending, and then shakes his head. "To have you here – in reach and yet out of reach? To meet you like this, in secret? That isn't what I want. To tell you the truth, I find it detestable."

Her relief is visible. "It is detestable, isn't it? To be like Eva Coupeau, bought and paid for, an open secret. To be just like all the others."

His brow knits. It seems every time he attempts to speak of their relationship with one another, she finds a way to make it immediately sordid. He isn't a fool; he knows his behavior is far from honorable, but the love between them remains untouched by any such darkness in his mind. It has caused him incredible pain but even to fall, to give in – he thinks there is something grand and literary in it.

The words come to him again, unbidden: perhaps he should not have come today.

It's a petty anger, but it spurs him to say, "I don't profess to be different from my kind. I'm consumed by the same wants and the same longings."

Her eyes, dark and somehow luminous, meet his with such bold steadiness that he feels heat rise in his neck and cheeks. "Shall I come to you once and then go home?"

The thought inspires such divine agony that it takes a few moments' sinful imaginings before the second half of her statement reaches him. "Home? What do you mean by home?"

"Back to my husband," Blair says. "I couldn't remain here after that. I couldn't face Serena."

The disillusionment of frustrated love has undeniably made Dan more disingenuous; he still dwells with shame on some of his more callous passing thoughts. Even now he thinks, fleeting and brutal, that he could agree, knowing that after they have been together it would be much easier to persuade her to stay. But the only thing keeping him in any way connected to the idealistic young man he had been is refusing to cross the line between thought and action. He would not do that to her.

Dan begins to say as much but falls silent before words can be vocalized. The warmth with which she looks at him, reserved for him solely, and the knowledge that no matter what he does she is likely lost to him conspire to trip up his tongue. He thinks of all their abortive little caresses, the roughly denied passion of her kiss. He can imagine what it would be like to have her.

"Well, then," Dan says. "Come to me once."

Blair's expression is unreadable. "When?"

"Tomorrow?"

Her hand covers his, thumb sliding past the barrier of his cuff and glove to stroke the underside of his wrist. It leaves a trail of sensation like a cool brand. "The day after."

Dan pulls his gaze from their joined hands to her face, expecting to find something other than the resolve that meets him. It is more than resolve, he realizes, heart beating faster at the thought – it's longing. It's the same longing that is reflected on his face, and he supposes if he felt her heartbeat it would be just as hurried. "The day after," he repeats softly.

 

 

 

 

After returning home following an afternoon and evening spent daydreaming at his desk, Dan goes to sit in his library. The lamps are low, a diffused glow illuminating little pockets of the otherwise darkened room. What will it be like, he wonders, afterwards? To touch her skin and then come home to this library, to sit in this chair, to turn the pages of these books? What will it be like to sit across the table from his wife at dinner?

"Dan?"

He starts at Serena's voice, looking up wildly to see her there in the doorway, uncertain about crossing into his domain. Then he looks more closely and sees there is something different about her. She's as tired as she's been since her grandmother took ill, but there is something nearly vivid in her eyes and mouth, a brightness he is no longer accustomed to seeing in Serena's face.

"Yes?" he says.

"I've just returned from Granny's." He's embarrassed not to have realized she was out. "It was lovely. Blair came in as I was there and we had a long talk – perhaps the first real talk we've had in ages." Smiling, she finally breaches the entry and crosses to sit in the chair opposite him. "She was so dear – just like the old Blair. I'm afraid I haven't been fair to her lately. I've sometimes thought –"

Dan is reminded abruptly of their frank talk in St. Augustine; Serena has the same restless energy tonight. "You've thought…?"

She waves a hand. "Well, she and I have both been unfair to one another. We would have been better suited as sisters instead of cousins, for how we bickered and competed." She laughs a little. "Or perhaps I should say unsuited."

"Perhaps," he murmurs.

He can feel her watching him over the few feet between them, her eyes that particular shade of dark blue that he will never be able to associate with anyone else. "Dan," she says, so gently. "You haven't kissed me today."

He knows the cue when he hears it. He knows he ought to rise and take her in his arms and kiss her, so that is what he does, even though he knows that his true betrayal of her will happen in less than two days' time. How will he manage to kiss her after that?

She puts her arms around his neck, her cheek warm against his cool skin. He feels a tremor run through her. How will they manage any more artifice, after that?


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He is still young; he still has the freedom to shatter his life and make something new out of the pieces.

Dan Humphrey does not enjoy the opera. He never has.

He has always been of the opinion that the opera is merely a new setting for the same old gossip, and he'd much rather be at home with his books than done up in his stiffest suit listening to everyone snipe about each other in lowered tones. Like now: Dan stands outside the curtains of the Vanderbilt box, preparing to do the customary drop in during intermission, when he hears William Vanderbilt's low grumbling voice say, "It's no surprise the Rhodes tried it on."

"That family is always trying _one_ thing or another," answers his wife, tsking. "Of course, it was all going just fine until _she_ returned."

"It would be her influence," the husband agrees. "Imagine, for Mrs. Humphrey to dare! To have her carriage seen in front of the Bass home, even knowing how her grandmother feels!"

Dan slips between the folds of the heavy curtain but remains lingering at the back of the box, unseen.

"I heard it said that woman was accompanying Mrs. Humphrey," the wife continues. "Doesn't that explain it all?"

"I think you forget my wife has always had a charitable spirit," Dan interjects, silently triumphant at the look of mortified surprise on the faces of the gathered Vanderbilts. "And I for one am proud of her."

"Well…yes," Mrs. Tripp Vanderbilt says finally, exchanging a worried look with her own husband. "Of course."

Nate is evidently not present, and Dan's gaze travels across the cavernous theatre to find his missing friend dropping in on _his_ box, leaning over to chat to Serena and Mrs. van der Woodsen, all of them with pleasant, shining smiles. Looking at them all together, they seem so well suited; perhaps Nate should have been her husband after all.

Dan shakes the thought loose, but it is succeeded by another just as painful: the very first night he saw Blair. He had been in much the same spot then as he is now, peering across the busy heads and gleaming fixtures filling the opera house, his gaze drawn to a woman other than the one he purported to love. A cad even then, it seems.

Serena sits now as she sat then, resplendent in white, but there are differences between the maiden and the wife. Her hair is woven up and out of her face, which is a little thinner. She has no flowers in her hands. And, Dan realizes abruptly, she is wearing her wedding gown.

It's the custom for brides to appear in this costly garment during the first year or two of marriage, but it is the first time Serena has donned the dress since she was married in it. Dan feels a curious, wistful affection for her in the moment, a longing for the time when she was all he had ever wanted. She _has_ always had a charitable spirit, his Serena; perhaps, just perhaps, she could be counted on for her understanding? She had offered him his freedom once, after all. She is so good, so much better than he is. Perhaps he could confess; perhaps she could be counted on for mercy.

Having made the Vanderbilts miserable enough, Dan excuses himself to return to his box. Once there he and Nate chat for a few minutes, but then Dan leans down to speak quietly in Serena's ear. "My dear, I have an awful headache; would you mind terribly missing the next act?"

"No, of course not," she says easily, ever-present worry bubbling up in her gaze again. Dan averts his attention from it.

Tomorrow he is meant to meet with Blair, so tonight is as good a night as ever to reveal the truth to his wife. As they sit side by side in the carriage home, it seems so obvious that he decides immediately and finally: he cannot keep this from her. He could not remain married to her after the breaking of vows.

They stop outside the house and Dan gets down first, holding his hand up for Serena. "I would like –" he starts, faltering at her quizzically furrowed brow. "That is, if you aren't too tired – could you come up to the study? We must talk over something very important."

Dan couldn't bear to let them both go on in this way any longer. She is owed her happiness, and so is he, even if such future happiness comes at the expense of the present.

"Oh," she murmurs. "Alright. Of course."

She takes a step down, hand trembling in his, and suddenly misses a step or gets caught in her skirt – either way, she ends up slipping and falling into his arms, the action accompanied by a sharp gasp and an even sharper tearing sound. Serena twists to look, letting out a disappointed little huff when she sees there is an awful rip in the fabric, and the white is stained gray from the slushy street.

"I ruined it," she says softly.

Uncomfortable, Dan says, "I'm sure it can be mended," but the allusions are rather too much for him, so he urges her along to the house.

In the study, they sit silently on either side of the fire, warming themselves or steeling themselves – or both. Dan thinks he loves her more now than he ever has, now in this minute right before he ends everything for good. Before it's over.

He wants to go about it honestly, without cruelty or cowardice. "I'm sure," Dan begins gently, "that you are not insensitive to what has been going on for so many months. You must have sensed my distance, and for that I apologize. I have been deeply conflicted. You see, it started when Blair –"

"There's no reason to talk of Blair now," Serena interrupts. Her voice is surprisingly firm, her jaw set as she looks up at him. She touches a nervous hand to her throat and firelight glints off her wedding rings, but then her hands fold in her lap, still. "Not now that she's returning home."

Dan stares at her. "Home?"

"Europe," Serena specifies. "Paris. Hadn't you heard? Granny has agreed to make Blair financially independent of the Count, so now she feels she can finally go back." Her eyes meet his directly and she wets her lips. "We've all been so unfair to her and she's been so unhappy here; it will be better for her to be among those who understand her. I know you did, and I'm glad for that. I'm glad she had some kindness here. But New York simply isn't her home any more and it hasn't been for a long time now."

"I don't… I'm not sure I understand," Dan says uncertainly. "I just spoke with her. She said nothing of it."

There is the faintest, most imperceptible flinch that dances along the fine bones of Serena's shoulders, revealed by her prettily ruffled white gown. "She sent me a note this afternoon. Would you like to see it?" At his half-hearted nod, mind reeling, Serena rises to go retrieve it. She returns moments later and sets it in his waiting hand. "I thought you knew."

His unseeing gaze drops down to the little square of paper, where Blair's fluttering penmanship has marked out the words Serena had just relayed to him with apparently little embellishment. New York is not her home anymore and she will be leaving it presently. She is so grateful for all that has been done for her, and all that continues to be done. Blair finishes with: _If any of my friends wish to change my mind, please tell them it would be utterly useless_.

Dan reads it through more than once and then starts laughing, a quiet little chuckle low in his throat. It reminds him of another letter that once sealed his fate, the one that bore the date of his marriage. His fate in the hands of everyone but him, and Dan always getting the news of it last minute.

"I hope you aren't too upset, darling," Serena tells him. She bends to kiss his cheek. "I know she had become a dear friend to you."

 

 

 

 

The following morning, Dan passes by his office and keeps going until he has been carried all the way to Wallack's Theatre, which has the honor of putting up Mr. Rufus Humphrey's latest musical endeavor. No one stops Dan on his way into the theatre, but they don't recognize him either; perhaps they think him an understudy or a new stagehand. He had filled both roles growing up on the boards, but never in quite so finely made a suit as the one he wears now.

His father is in the pit conferring with the musicians, going over sheet music and gesturing emphatically. Rufus Humphrey is in his element as he dictates melodies and lyrics, more at home here than he ever was anywhere else. He has been on an extended tour in Europe for the past six months, but new endeavors have brought him home at last. This will be the first Dan is seeing of him since his return.

Even if it is no longer Dan's second home, and he has no experience with this particular theatre, there is still a nostalgia that grounds him to the stage and the seats, the burning lamps and the bustling people. He and Jenny had been fond of playing pretend as little ones, weaving in and out of painted sets in borrowed costumes – unsurprisingly, she favored the gold foil crown and Dan the wooden sword. The passage of time has rendered Dan's childhood idyllic, and though his rational mind knows they wanted for much – heat, food, new clothes, books, a hundred necessities and simple luxuries – he cannot help but feel that it was the happiest time of all their lives. Now Dan wants for nothing and he's never been more discontent.

Dan's father turns to give instructions to a passing seamstress and notices Dan almost immediately. His face clears, smile quick and eyes crinkling. "Son!" he exclaims. "I didn't know I'd be seeing you today."

"I didn't know it either," Dan tells him. "I was on my way to work but I simply couldn't bear it."

"I'm not surprised," Rufus says. "I do wish you'd never gotten it into your head that you needed a job like that. You –" He trails off upon seeing Dan's expression and gives a short laugh. "I'm sorry, son, I won't go resurrecting old arguments now. I'm glad to see you. Please, sit – tell me all that's going on in your life."

Dan laughs, humorless and more than a little mad; how could he sum up what his life has become? They take their seats in the creaking audience chairs, threadbare velvet under Dan's fingers.

"I am married and I am in love," he says, not offering clarification beyond that. "Yet I am unhappy. Do you have the answer for that?"

Rufus could take it as a challenge considering the home he shares with his own wife is less than warm these days. But instead he studies Dan thoughtfully. "Did I ever tell you the story of my first marriage?"

"You know very well you haven't. I never knew there was a woman other than my mother."

Rufus smiles wryly, though his eyes are distant and melancholy with memory. "We were married for days only before it was annulled; most days I don't think to count it."

"But today you do," Dan notes.

"Today I do," Rufus agrees. "There are similarities in our situations, I think. The girl I loved was far above me in every way. She had run away from home to be an actress but she hadn't run far enough; her family came and found her, but it was only after she and I had fallen in love. I was desperate to marry, and she agreed, so we eloped – and again she was retrieved, the marriage dissolved, and both of us returned to our separate spheres. Me, a penniless musician; her, a wealthy debutante."

Dan recognizes more than a few of his father's songs in the story. "Not so penniless for long."

"Ah." Rufus waves that off. "By the time I'd made good on my promises, both she and I were married with our own families."

"But you loved her still," Dan guesses. _Love her still_ , he should say, reading his father's face too easily. It is an oddly gutting sensation to reveal one more layer of Dan's life tinged with deceit, one more facet made fraudulent by the truth. Perhaps it is merely in his blood to be dissatisfied and cowardly.

"Oh, no, it was young love," Rufus says. "Puppyish, immature."

"You're lying." The words slip from Dan's mouth without a second thought but he is convinced of their veracity. Even if his father denied it again, he would still be convinced. "You loved her and you lost her, but that didn't make the love disappear."

Rufus observes him steadily. "You married your debutante, Dan."

Dan returns the look. "Did I?"

Rufus releases a slow breath, leaning back in his chair. "Is this about that governess? Because if it is, I feel bound to state again that her conduct was most inappropriate –"

"No," Dan sighs. "No, it's not about the damned governess. It never is, no matter what everyone seems to think."

"Then what is it?"

Dan slumps, biting his tongue to keep the confession back. He can't speak it, not even to his own father. "I know that you chose to be just a little unhappy for all of your days because it was easier than fighting for what you truly wanted. And you kept my mother in the dark of that lie and raised your children in that lie and now that lie is the defining feature of my entire life."

Flabbergasted, Rufus says, "You can't possibly blame me for whatever it is that you have deemed wrong in your own life –"

"I don't blame you, I blame everyone, I blame it all," Dan says. "I blame the constructions of society that have made us all this way and I blame myself for not being able to challenge it either."

Dan knows then exactly what he is going to do. He will leave his job, leave his marriage, leave his life – he will leave it all behind and follow Blair wherever she chooses to go. He is still young; he still has the freedom to shatter his life and make something new out of the pieces.

 

 

 

 

Though two years of marriage have led to any number of small get-togethers and friendly little parties, the Daniel Humphreys have yet to have the kind of dinner that requires the services of a chef, additional hired help, and all sorts of ornamental frippery that Dan personally finds rather ridiculous. If it were up to him, there would be little in the way of entertaining; thanks to his reticent nature, which has only grown more reserved over the years, he has no interest in making his home the center of attention. Serena, however, is another story, for she leans almost too far in the opposite direction – her soirées have quite outdone Mrs. Ivy Dickens' in their regularity and frivolity. But for all the drinks spilled on their sitting room carpet, Dan and Serena have never hosted a proper party, and tonight's is to be their very first.

It is a bon voyage to the Countess Blair Grimaldi.

Preparations leading up to the party have been a comedy of errors, with Mrs. Lily van der Woodsen's ostentatious taste clashing with Mrs. Allison Humphrey's more homespun attempts as both try to tutor Serena in how best to host such an event. Thanks to Serena's mother, there will be roses from Henderson's on every table and thanks to Dan's there will be personally written place cards and menus at every table setting. Serena is a whirlwind, trying to oblige every request and honor every offer.

Dan goes along without complaint because as far as he's concerned, it is his last act as Serena's husband.

He has not heard a word from Blair, written or spoken. The only thing approaching a missive that he has received was a sealed envelope sent to his office, which contained a key wrapped in tissue paper – the tool with which their affair was to be conducted. Dan has not responded to her in any way either; he is of the opinion that her rapid return to Europe might prove beneficial for Dan's own proposed flight. They will both be removed from the whispers and rumors sure to follow the scandal, and Serena will be given a wide berth in which to recover. Dan will give her New York, he'll give her all of the United States – he only wants his freedom.

The guests arrive all in a great busy cloud: Nate and his wife Penelope, Mr. Cyrus Rose and his son Aaron, Serena's assorted family members (minus the still-shunned Basses and ever more fragile Mrs. Celia Rhodes), and some married socialites whom Dan can't remember ever sparing a kind word Blair's way. The brightly lit rooms are soon full of swishing skirts and happy chatter, everyone with a glass in hand and good spirits in surplus. Dan offers meaningless smiles and pointless repartee as his gaze regularly leaps to the door, awaiting the lady of honor.

Blair arrives last, as is her habit – too many years spent learning how to make an entrance. Always a little pale, tonight finds her nearly ashen, with her dark hair piled atop her head in a densely woven bun that seems to overwhelm her delicate features, looking too heavy to be held up by her slender neck. Her bright red dress sets off her complexion to disadvantage, lending her a lusterless quality that makes more than one politely spiteful debutante remark that she looks too ill for travel. Next to Serena, gleaming faintly in a satiny white frock, she looks positively consumptive.

But if asked to comment upon Blair's dull eyes or distinct pallor, Dan could only offer superlatives instead. It is like a drumming in the back of his skull that drowns out rational thought or even basic compassion, so that he can look at her standing beside his wife in his marital home (which Blair has never visited before) and think only: I love her, I love her, I love her.

She offers him the briefest of greetings, just an ungloved hand trailing over his arm.

"I am sorry my arrival was delayed," she says, looking past him. "It was Granny, you understand – she's feeling utterly deserted, the poor dear."

"Yes," Dan says, unhearing. "Yes, of course; no matter."

Once they sit down to dinner, the conversation turns almost entirely to Blair's future plans, everyone posing questions to her with a buzzing interest that belies the years they spent denouncing her very presence. Dan's jaw clenches as he listens to the insincere fawning, the silent dismissal of all past renunciations, the complete acceptance of Blair now that her passage out of the country is booked. It's with complete astonishment that he hears Penelope say, "Oh, dear Blair, it's a pity you couldn't stay longer!"

Dan feels untethered to the entire scene, as incautious and cavalier as though he was drunk, though he has had hardly any sips of wine. He feels as he did when he was a young man new to prosperity, ghosting along the edges of sumptuous ballrooms, observing everything but remaining somehow unseen. It's then that the realization strikes him; just as he can see every crack in each pleasant façade, he can suddenly see the truth that lurks behind every benign smile. They all believe him and Madame Grimaldi to be lovers. They endeavor to maintain the illusion that Dan himself has gone out of his way to set up, that he is simply defender of his chosen family and anyone in it, but the language of New York society is a language of lies that no one really believes, not deep down, not in whispers.

With detached curiosity, he wonders how long he has been the subject of idle gossip and observing eyes. Months definitely, but more likely _years_ , everyone keeping tabs on how often he might have spoken Blair's name or been caught in her company. It is as though every personal feeling Dan has ever had has in reality been performed upon a stage with a bright light bearing every ugly mark and storied imperfection to an unkind audience. They have probably all passed suspicions and inquiries between them, but now that Blair will safely soon be gone, the entire tribe can once again rally around the tacit assumption that nobody knew anything, or had ever imagined anything, and that tonight was nothing more than the friendliest of farewells.

The entire thing makes Dan inappropriately amused.

"Countess," he says, in a voice no different and perhaps surprising for that, "are you looking forward to your travels?"

Blair turns to him with a resigned look in her eyes but a slight smile about her lips. "Yes," she answers. "It has been too long since I have ventured farther than this coast, and I do relish the opportunity. Though of course all travel has its hardships."

"There is something blessed about getting away." Dan meets her eyes steadily and watches color rise in those colorless cheeks, knowing now that someone else – or maybe even everyone else – is noticing it too. "I mean to do a lot of traveling myself before long."

The night winds on through several courses, brandies and cigars, and finally civilized though rather dispassionate goodbyes. Serena is flush with the success of the evening and she is the only one to wrap Blair up in both arms and kiss her on both cheeks, a show of such expressive emotion that Blair seems overwhelmed, crushed beneath it.

"Certainly our hostess is much the prettier of the two," says Jonathan Whitney to Eric. It's only a teasing compliment to a friend, but it reminds Dan of the unseemly way Bass had once remarked upon Serena's _perfection_.

A moment later Dan is called upon to help Blair into her cloak and he does so like a stranger, perfunctory and brisk. What could he say to her then except goodbye?

Her hand is gloved once more as it slips into his. "I shall see you soon in Paris," he promises, voice low, unwilling to project for the audience just then.

"Oh," Blair says, "If you and Serena could come!"

Hands fall away and Blair turns, fingers alighting on Cyrus Rose's arm as he leads her out the door towards her waiting carriage. A footman helps her up but she pauses there, held aloft in the pressing darkness of the evening, a hint of red skirt and the dim oval of a face, eyes shining steadily as she looks back at Dan, seeming to stare right into the depths of him – and then she is gone.

Dan stands there in the doorway with the cool breeze playing about his face. Inside of himself he has nothing; his heart has booked passage to Paris.

Serena comes to stand beside him and lean her cheek upon his shoulder, fingers twining with his unresponsive ones. "It did go off beautifully, didn't it?"

"Mm," he murmurs noncommittally. "You must be very pleased."

"Very tired too," Serena says before she presses a kiss to his cheek. "Come, everyone is gone; let's you and I sit together."

Dan had been hoping to go straight to bed, or at least that she would so that he could lurk sullenly around the library, where she now leads him, but he does not resist. Tonight or tomorrow, it makes no difference; he is going to finish the conversation he has tried so hard to start.

"I thought Penelope might dance a little jig of joy to be rid of Blair," Serena laughs, giving a twirl before she drops into the coziest armchair, her feet going up on the nearby stool. "I think she was happier tonight than she was at her own wedding."

Dan offers up no response, allowing the silence to stretch between them for many long minutes before he finally speaks, his words unconnected to her easy party gossip. "You say you're tired," he begins. "Well, I am too. Exhausted. I think – no, I _know_ – I have decided that I must take a break."

Serena's eyes have sharpened as they focus on him. "From the law? You know I am in full support; I pity anyone who has to go to work with my father all day, and we both know writing is your true passion."

He blinks at her, taken aback, but says, "No – well. Perhaps. But I meant something different. I would like to go on a trip – very far, and for an indeterminate amount of time. You see –"

"Oh," Serena interrupts. "But I'm afraid you can't – at least, not without me, and I'm certain the doctors won't let me go."

"Doctors?" Dan repeats, but the sinking in his stomach proves he already knows what she will say.

"I've been sure since this morning," she says quietly, watching him. "I had been longing and hoping and, well – now I'm certain."

Dan finds himself rising and going to her, sinking to his knees next to her chair. "Oh, Serena."

He puts his head in her lap and feels her fingers card through his hair, his chest suddenly tight and breathing shallow and difficult.

"You didn't guess?"

"No, I hadn't the faintest, I –" His lifts his head to look at her, brow creasing somewhat. "Have you told anyone else?"

"Only my mother and yours. I was sure you'd know after that, because your dear mother couldn't keep from crying." Serena bites her lip, then adds, "And Blair, of course. I told you of that long talk we had? It is an old habit, perhaps – I could never keep a thing like that from Blair."

Dan's heart seems to skip and skid in his chest, slipping on ice. "Ah."

She has, of course, kept many things from Blair over the years.

"You don't mind my telling her first, do you?"

"Mind? Why should I mind?" But something cold seems to slither through him. "Though that was a week ago, wasn't it? You said you weren't sure until today."

Serena goes slightly pink, and the hand that is still curved against Dan's throat seems to flinch. "No, I wasn't sure then – but I told her I was. And you see I was right!"

Dan knows then that there will be no trips to Paris.


	9. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dan has, in many ways, accomplished everything he set out to do. He had a successful marriage, wonderful children, and a rewarding career. But he knows that even so, there has always been something missing.

Dan Humphrey sits at his desk in his library in his home on East Thirty-ninth Street holding a copy of his newest novel in his hands.

It is his most modern attempt yet and has so far been well received, a lengthy and lingering treatise on memory and history. The writing of it had brought up associations Dan had spent over twenty years of his life trying to forget, but he couldn't deny that the resulting novel far exceeded his expectations.

He sets it aside for now, leaning back in his chair and taking in the room around him, which has remained largely unchanged through the years, no matter the many milestones it has witnessed. This library is where Serena first told him she was to have a child; where Dan began work on what would become his first novel; where their eldest daughter Celia took her first eager and stumbling steps; where their youngest child Laurence uttered his first word (a charmingly unimaginative "da"); where, most recently, their daughter Mattie had announced her engagement to one of Nate Archibald's many sons. It was the room where the family gathered to pass hours playing or reading until they made too much noise and Dan had to laughingly usher them out so he could work. It was where he and Serena would retire fireside to discuss their children, the fears and worries they shared for those three bright futures.

Dan has had a good life. Abandoning the law following Celia's birth had led to staggering success with his writing, and for many years he hadn't been able to stop the flow of words spilling out as fast as his hand could move across the page. Everyone thought it very charming for him to go from lawyer to novelist and for a time Dan was happy to vent his embarrassments and frustrations under the guise of fiction. He had Serena to thank for it; more than anyone else, she had always supported his writing and urged him never to give it up. Dan has, in many ways, accomplished everything he set out to do. He had a successful marriage, wonderful children, and a rewarding career.

But he knows that even so, there has always been something missing.

His desk bears the mementos of his well-lived life: the first photograph he ever had of Serena, tall and strong and beautiful, but also the last, taken a mere six months before her death from the pneumonia that had nearly taken Laurence with it too. She had nursed him tirelessly back to health before succumbing suddenly herself, and in the three years that have passed since, Dan still finds himself adrift without her constant steadying presence. Only yesterday he had found one of her hatpins in his pocket. He has no idea how that happened.

Between the photographs of Serena is one of both their daughters together, two beaming faces that could not have been formed more differently. Mattie is his own clear as day, slight and angular with piles of dark curly hair and a somewhat studious nature that nevertheless holds a hint of her mother's mischief. Celia, on the other hand, is all her mother: blue eyes, windblown blonde hair, and distinctively infectious grin, but she also has Serena's courage of her convictions. Celia makes waves just the same, though she pushes back even harder and more ferociously, and her devotion to suffrage has caused her maternal grandmother more than a few dizzy spells.

Sometimes Dan thinks Serena was a little wistful, if not outright envious, that she had not had the freedom Celia has, or perhaps that she had not pushed harder to have it. She was at the very least a more forgiving mother than her own.

Just then the telephone goes and when Dan answers, it's the very girl he has been thinking of.

"Hello, Dad – I've got a question for you. How do you feel about sailing for Europe? Paris, to be exact. This very Wednesday. It seems a publisher over there has some interest in my manuscript. Yes, I'm still using a nom de plume – I'm not a ninny, I don't want anyone to think I got it because my father's Daniel Humphrey. Just a quick trip, mind – got to be back in time for Mattie's wedding. Please say yes, Dad, I want you there in case it goes well."

"Of course, Cee, I wouldn't dream of refusing." In truth, something in him is unsettled. They used to travel all the time as a family – Serena insisted on it – though, oddly, never to Paris. Dan has not seen Paris since his honeymoon, all those many years ago.

Still, it is a faint and unformed refusal. He wouldn't miss for the world Celia's first chance at publication, though a part of him still laughs uproariously, inwardly, that his name means anything or could confer any kind of unwarranted opportunity. He has been reading his daughter's stories since she was old enough to scrawl, and he will be proud to watch her triumph.

But strange – after all this time, Paris.

 

 

Paris is still the city of Dan's youth, even if his youth is now long behind him. As a mere visitor, the sights and sounds are unchanged to him; without the intimate experience of living on these pretty, tree-lined streets, he has no sense of the little changes that twenty-odd years have wrought. He only sees buildings that seem familiar, architecture that hasn't changed in decades. The scent of coffee and bread outside the cafés, or the perfume of lilacs, brings him back so abruptly to his honeymoon that he could almost feel Serena's hand brushing his. He misses his wife. Even after it all, he misses her.

Throughout the intervening years, Dan had often imagined his return to Paris. Once it had been an impatient and hotheaded vision, Dan disembarking a ship and racing through the streets. As he grew older, the picture changed and finally faded, flickered to nothing. He endeavored to see the city as simply the setting of Blair's life. In idle moments he might think of her taking a stroll down half-remembered streets or adjusting her hat in the breeze off the Seine. When he thinks of Blair Waldorf – for despite himself, he always thinks of her as Blair _Waldorf_ – it is always as one of the heroines of his novels. Paris became the stage on which her life was constructed, a collection of shapes or impressions formed around her, holding her there in amber. It was all fuel for the narrative.

It is another thing entirely to be in the city now.

The richness of experience dwarfs Dan's inane imaginings. He feels positively provincial; what is he except the silly New Yorker who had come to believe Manhattan held everything there was to see in the world? Had he so utterly forgotten the breath and scope outside of it? To relegate Paris to little more than set dressing, and to turn the woman who lives there into a ghost made out of paragraphs – the entire thing feels immature and ridiculous.

Celia comes up beside him and links her arm with his. Her free hand, ungloved, is busy trying to shove loose tendrils of blonde hair back into the safety of her hat; she never seems able to keep all that hair tucked away. "Hullo, Dad. This sure is something, isn't it?"

"Indeed it is, Cee."

They stand together looking down the street for a moment before Celia rouses herself and says, "By the way, I've got a message for you: the Countess Grimaldi expects us both at half-past five."

She says it carelessly, eagerly even, and when Dan looks at her he is strongly reminded of her namesake, that wicked old woman who used to tease him so.

"Didn't I tell you? I'm terribly excited, I haven't seen her since that summer I came to Paris as a girl. So I rang her up this morning and told her you and I were here for two days and wanted to see her."

The summer Celia speaks of, when she turned fourteen and became briefly impossible and so was sent away as appeasement (to Mattie's endless wailing), had resulted in one of the more pained winters of Dan's life. He had had to leave the room every time Blair's name came up (which was often, because Celia adored her) and got something of a reputation amongst his children for disliking her. But this feels different. "You told her I was here?"

"Of course! Why not?" Celia leans her cheek against his shoulder as they begin to walk. "What was she like?"

"What do you mean?"

"Oh, come on, Dad, own up! All those years making us believe you didn't care for her! I know you and she were great pals, weren't you? Was she awfully lovely? Mother had a picture of the two of them from ages and ages ago, and every time I look at it, I just see me and Mattie."

Dan swallows with difficulty. "I don't know. She was different."

Celia sighs dreamily. "Ah, there you have it. That's what it always comes to, doesn't it? When that person comes, they're different – and one doesn't know why. That's exactly how I feel about Henry."

"Henry?" Dan repeats. Several different strains of distress are braiding together around him. "Henry Bass?"

"Mm. I think I might marry him, you know. If I choose to marry at all."

Henry Bass had come up to New York following his eighteenth birthday, after the death of his parents and a childhood spent in languid prosperity in Buenos Aires. All of the older set had rather expected the worst from him, but Henry proved himself a relatively somber young man more in the mold of his grandfather than his late father. Only people Dan's age or older even remembered Bass' business failure that had so rippled through New York and sent the man running, or that after his first wife's death he had quietly remarried to the notorious Eva Coupeau. Only twenty years prior, he would have had no prospects at all, and now Dan's own daughter considers him one of the only possibilities for her in the world.

Dan rather thinks cheerful, strong-willed Celia would be a good match for serious Henry, but he's still having trouble with Celia's implications about the Countess.

"You know you are certainly too young to marry," Dan tells her finally, and then follows it with, "Only I don't see how the comparison stands."

Celia lifts her head so she can level him with an unimpressed and knowing look that Dan suspects she got from him. "Don't be prehistoric. Wasn't she once your Henry?"

It wasn't all Rhodes blood that made Celia so unabashedly frank; her candor was a sign of her entire generation, one that seemed not to possess an ounce of reserve. "I don’t know what you mean."

Celia doesn't spare a moment's consideration to her next words. "Well, the woman you'd have chucked everything for, only you didn't."

Stunned, Dan can only echo, "I didn't."

"Mother said –"

"Your mother?"

"Of course, who else's mother would it be? The day before she died, when she sent for me, she said she knew we were safe with you and always would be, because once, when she asked you to, you'd given up the thing you wanted most."

Dan can only answer that with silence, suddenly distanced from the arm in his and the pavement beneath his feet. At length he replies, very quiet, "She never asked me."

With both sympathy and exasperation, Celia says, "No, I forgot. You never did ask each other anything, did you? And you never told each other anything. You just sat and watched each other and guessed at what was going on underneath."

Still withdrawn, Dan says, "Don't be cruel, Celia."

A wince mars her brow. "Oh, Dad, don't be angry with me! I didn't mean anything by it. It's just your whole generation."

Despite himself, Dan snorts softly. "No, I'm not angry. Forgive your father, he's a very old man and prone to shock easily."

They share a less eventful lunch, then part so Celia can run some errands, but Dan suspects she devised it as such to leave him time to compose himself again. He has to deal all at once with the packed regrets and stifled memories of a lifetime.

He's not sure he minds Celia knowing – or, more likely, _all_ of them knowing, considering Celia could never be counted on to keep a secret. It takes him a little while to realize the sensation he is experiencing is _relief_ – to receive some kind of consolation after all this time is humbling, and to learn that the one person to see his pain and pity him had been his wife moves him indescribably.

Blair waits at the close of a few hours' time. Little details of her life have filtered down to Dan through the years, overheard at family functions or glimpsed in letters left abandoned on tabletops. He knows her husband passed without her ever returning to him. It had comforted him to know that, and he was pleased to let the version of her in his mind's eye continue living unattached and free.

He walks through the city until he finds himself at the Louvre. Blair had once remarked to him offhand that she liked to visit there, and the information was upheld by fourteen year old Celia, who spoke at length of their afternoon trips to the museum. It appeals to Dan to pass the hours in a place where he could think of her as perhaps having lately been. The idea of her passing her life amongst such beauty is appealing too; he knows such a thing is important to her. He thinks perhaps he has been starved for similar sights.

Studying an evocative Titian, Dan mutters to himself, "But I'm only fifty-two –" and then turns away, impatient.

Dan leaves the museum and wanders, content only to move until he realizes his feet have carried him all the way to the Invalides. Blair lives in one of the nearby squares. He even knows the number, scribbled on a scrap of paper in his daughter's hand so he would know where to meet her.

Dan is overwhelmed, stifled, thinking of the entirety of the world Blair has inhabited without him. Surely his own life, even with its prizes and achievements, is small in comparison; he is just another person to marry young, have children young, and spend his life corralled inside the house he, once upon a time, longed so deeply for. It is strange how desires shift, and how the very things one imagines are designed to fulfill them don't do nearly enough. Dan has been mostly happy; he knows this. But now a life unlived is unraveling alongside his own and the comparison is staggering.

For twenty-five years, Blair's life has been spent in this rich atmosphere, this city of such incomparable beauty. He thinks of the theatres she must have been to, the pictures she must have looked at, the people she must have talked with, the incessant stir of ideas, curiosities, images and associations. Dan is so apart from it, so sequestered in the life he built for himself. It seems absurd to think their lives might intersect again, two parallel roads somehow running into one another. Dan has aged. He's gray at his temples and needs spectacles to read. The telephone still startles him sometimes.

Celia finds him sitting on a bench beneath a drooping tree, his gaze lifted to the building ahead as he tries to pick out which window is Blair's.

"Sorry I'm late," Celia says, though she always is, ever the whirlwind. "It's nearly six. Shall we go?"

"Oh, I don't know," Dan says.

She looks at him. "You don't know?"

With a slight smile, Dan tells her, "Go on. Perhaps I'll follow you."

"Do you mean you won't come up at all?" Celia shifts her weight, perplexed, and finally wonders, "But what on earth shall I say?"

His smile stretches. "My dear girl, don't you always know what to say?"

Frowning, Celia determines, "Fine. I shall say you're terribly old-fashioned, and prefer walking up five flights because you don't like lifts."

That amuses him too. "Say I'm old-fashioned; that's enough."

With another very tragic look, Celia turns from him to enter the building. Dan follows her progress in his thoughts, narrating a little like he sometimes does, the effect of too much writing on the mind. She will make her way upstairs restlessly and likely enter the drawing-room with a beaming smile and a skipping step. He sees Blair as he remembers her: small and pale with rich brown curls, only ever smiling a little, her delicate hands decorated with rings. She will be as happy to see Celia as Celia is to see her. But perhaps, just perhaps, after greetings are exchanged she will look past the daughter of her departed cousin and ask, "But where is your father?"

Dan sits for a long time on the bench, so long that dusk rises around him, but his eyes never turn from the fifth floor balcony. At length a servant comes out to draw up the awnings and close the shutters, which Dan takes as a signal to finally get to his feet. He will return to the hotel to wait for his daughter, have a cup of coffee in the interim, and sketch out plans for the next book.

If there is one thing that has lingered round Dan's neck as an albatross all these many years, it is a life of inaction. He has discovered safe ways to be brave, with pen and ink, but ultimately he is nothing like the man he once dreamed of being – a man who sought and made his own destiny.

Momentarily rooted to the spot, Dan thinks finally of a girl who was nasty to him once at a party; who looked at him, lost, with tears in her eyes; who kissed him in a snow-covered carriage and almost immediately regretted it. He thinks of the confidences they once shared, the promises made and kept. He thinks of Blair and he knows then what to do – or perhaps he has always known, and is only now uncovering it.

He goes up.


End file.
